PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Surgery: Waiting Lists (13 January 2023)

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Delivery plan for tackling the Covid-19 backlog of elective care, published on 8 February 2022, what progress his Department has made in delivering that plan.

Asked by:
Karin Smyth (Labour)

Since the publication of the Delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlog of elective care, the National Health Service has virtually eliminated two year waits for NHS treatments and is making progress on tackling the next long waits ambition that no one is waiting over 18 months by April 2023, nor over 65 weeks by March 2024.

The plan promises investment in up to 160 community diagnostic centres (CDCs) to deliver up to 17 million tests by March 2025. To date, 91 CDCs are operational, and have delivered over 2.5 million additional checks as of November 2022. Currently, there are 89 elective surgical hubs which are operational across England, focusing on providing high volume low complexity surgery.

To support elective recovery, we have committed to spend more than £8 billion from 2022/23 to 2024/25, in addition to the £2 billion Elective Recovery Fund and £700 million Targeted Investment Fund. As part of the Autumn Statement, we are also investing an additional £3.3 billion in each of 2023/24 and 2024/25 to support the NHS in England, enabling rapid action to improve emergency, elective and primary care performance towards pre-pandemic levels.

Answered by:
Will Quince (Conservative)
18 January 2023