Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many tonsillectomies were carried out on children in each of the last five years.

A count of finished consultant episodes in England for children aged zero to 17 years old with a primary or secondary procedure of tonsillectomy from 2020/21 to 2024/25 is as follows:

• between 2020/21 there were 9,706 procedures;
• between 2021/22 there were 16,914 procedures;
• between 2022/23 there were 21,348 procedures;
• between 2023/24 there were 24,807 procedures; and
• between 2024/25 there were 31,000 procedures.

The increase in the number of procedures carried out each year between 2020/21 and 2024/25 reflects the National Health Service’s ongoing work to recover elective activity following the disruption caused by the COVID‑19 pandemic and represents a return to pre-pandemic levels of treatment.