Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps his Department has taken to reduce waiting times for the treatment of chronic heart disease.

NHS England and NHS Improvement have published planning guidance for 2018/19 which sets out the steps that need to be taken across the National Health Service over the coming year to reduce waiting times. This confirms that allocations for clinical commissioning groups in 2018/19 will enable an increase in elective procedures and a reduction in the number of patients waiting for over 52 weeks.

NHS England collects and publishes monthly referral to treatment data which are used to monitor NHS waiting times performance against the standards set out in the National Health Service Commissioning Board and Clinical Commissioning Groups (Responsibilities and Standing Rules) Regulations. This information is used to direct interventions at a local, regional and national level where needed.