NHS: Waiting Lists

(asked on )

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to reduce the number of patients waiting more than six weeks for diagnostic tests by the NHS.


Answered by
Steve Barclay Portrait
Steve Barclay
Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
This question was answered on 18th April 2018

NHS Improvement and NHS England provide guidance and support to the National Health Service to help reduce elective waiting times by promoting effective management of patient pathways.

Health Education England (HEE) plan to invest in 1,890 more diagnostic and therapeutic radiographers by 2021. They have identified system wide actions to secure a further 955, producing a total of 2,227 full time equivalent (FTE) more diagnostic radiographers and 1,560 FTE more therapeutic radiographers (an 18% increase from 2016), as well as 200 additional clinical endoscopists and a further 300 reporting radiographers to support an increase in capacity for earlier diagnosis by 2021.

The majority of patients are being diagnosed and treated promptly against a backdrop of more people being referred and diagnosed than ever before. In 2016/17 the NHS carried out 21.4 million diagnostic tests, seven million more than in 2010.

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