Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the findings of the October 2021 survey by the Private Healthcare Information Network of a 30 per cent increase in the number of patients self-funding cataract surgery, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that patients can access eyecare services through the NHS in a timely manner.

Surgical hubs are being used to deliver high volume low complexity operations, which is increasing the number of cataract operations being performed. National Health Service trusts are also increasing the use of technology to improve ophthalmic diagnostics, including virtual eye hubs where technicians administer tests and consultants can review results via cloud software. In some cases, these hubs have halved patient journey times and reduced costs and unnecessary referrals.

Clinicians from the Getting It Right First Time programme and the Royal College of Ophthalmologists are producing a best practice guide to support providers to increase capacity as well as the quality of services. This guidance will be circulated to providers shortly.

We have made £2 billion available through the Elective Recovery Fund in 2021/22 and a further £8 billion from April 2022 to March 2025 to increase activity and tackle the backlogs in elective care services. This is expected to deliver the equivalent of approximately nine million more checks, scans and procedures across elective services. The NHS in England can aim to deliver approximately 30% more elective activity by 2024/25 than pre-pandemic levels. A further £5.9 billion capital funding was announced in the October 2021 to support elective recovery, diagnostics and technology from 2022 to 2025.