Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to encourage the broader use of NHS transformation initiatives, such as patient-initiated follow-up and shared decision-making.

The Government's Elective Reform Plan, published in January 2025 and shared with all National Health Service trusts, exemplifies our dedication to NHS transformation. It sets out a wide-ranging package of reforms, such as increasing patient initiated follow up (PIFU) to 5% of outpatient appointments by March 2029. We are supporting NHS trusts to deliver transformation initiatives like PIFU through innovation, sharing best practice to increase productivity and efficiency, and ensuring the best value is delivered. NHS England has detailed national guidance for trusts with various resources to help implement transformation initiatives.

Shared decision making between patients and clinicians ensures patients are empowered to make informed choices about their care. Investment and development of digital platforms is key to that, including our commitments to go further on the NHS App, the Federated Data Platform and the electronic referral service. These efforts will facilitate shared decision making through improved information for patients on waiting times and better two-way communication between patients and healthcare teams. In addition, our introduction of a new £20 payment per Advice and Guidance (A&G) request for general practitioners, to support stepping up A&G, demonstrates how we are supporting initiatives which transform how primary and secondary care work together to provide seamless patient care.