NHS: Elective and Cancer Care Backlog

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Tuesday 7th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

My noble friend makes an important point. What matters is not just the amount that you put in but the way that you spend it. This is why the Government announced the NHS long-term plan to look at where we should tackle issues and the nature of waiting lists and, given that much of the waiting list is for diagnostics, roll out diagnostic centres to meet that challenge.

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, an exacerbating factor in the size of waiting lists more generally is the number of patients referred unnecessarily to secondary care specialists. One way of addressing this problem is to make more time available to GPs to investigate patients’ symptoms more carefully. Does the Minister agree that, in looking at the overall issue of waiting lists, we have to take into account the needs of primary care as well and not just secondary care?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The noble and gallant Lord makes the very important point that we have to look at the whole way we configure our system of healthcare in this country. Many things that were previously done in secondary care can be done in primary. In fact, some of the things that were done in GP surgeries can now be done in the community in diagnostics centres or even in pharmacies, as many people who have had their booster recently will acknowledge.