Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the cost to the economy of the 55 per cent of patients waiting for orthopaedic treatment who are economically inactive due to their condition.

No formal estimate has been made. The COVID-19 pandemic has put enormous pressures on the National Health Service with elective waiting lists growing to over 7.2 million patients, but the Department remains committed to ensuring people get the right care at the right time. That is why we are delivering record staffing numbers and putting in record levels of funding, to help the NHS recover and transform services.

Having virtually met our target to eliminate long waits of two years or more for elective procedures in July, our next ambition is to eliminate waits of eighteen months or more by April 2023.