Oral Answers to Questions

Graham Stuart Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Karin Smyth]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. If that works well for his local system, there is nothing to stop it. How the ICB undertakes its role has to be determined locally to make it most effective for local circumstances, and it can undertake that role as it sees fit.

[Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

11. What assessment he has made of trends in the level of unreported removals from waiting lists.

[The Minister for Secondary Care (Karin Smyth)]

Over 85% of waiting list removals are made as a result of patient care, and since the end of the pandemic, unreported removals have been below pre-pandemic levels. Record levels of elective activity are being delivered by NHS staff, enabling us to cut waiting lists and meet our interim target of 65% of patients being seen within 18 weeks—the highest performance in over four years.

[Graham Stuart]

People in Beverley and Holderness want high-quality and speedy care, not massaged waiting list numbers that suit Labour narratives. Of course, Mr Speaker, you will remember that the last Labour Government had form on this as well, because the National Audit Office repeatedly found that the numbers were manipulated when waiting lists were similarly put on a pedestal. The Minister has the new Secretary of State by her side. Can she reassure people in Beverley and Holderness that we will have genuinely improved healthcare, rather than widespread manipulation and the cleansing of waiting lists to suit political purposes?

[Karin Smyth]

If anyone has forgotten, the last Labour Government left the NHS in a better state than it was in under successive Governments. That is not in dispute in terms of waiting list targets or, indeed, patient satisfaction. The right hon. Gentleman might want to look again at the record.

The point that the Conservatives seem to be intent on following up forever is an important one. Some 85% of the activity is a result of direct patient care. Validation, both clinical and clerical, is a long-standing routine practice of waiting list management. At roughly 15%—it was slightly higher before the pandemic—the rate is no different now from what it has been before, so it is not the case that something different is going on here. What we are doing is making sure that the right hon. Gentleman’s constituents—I appreciate that there are many other local problems in his system at the moment—can be clear that we have the right people on the right list for the right care in the right place by the right clinicians. That is what we are determined to do.