Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how the £10 billion in extra funding provided as part of covid-19 recovery planning will tackle the waiting times for disabled children to receive an equipment assessment; and what estimate he has made of the timeframe in which those waiting times will be reduced.

In 2021/22, we have made £2 billion available and a further £8 billion from April 2022 to March 2025 to increase activity and reduce waiting times for patients, including disabled children. This funding aims to deliver the equivalent of approximately nine million more checks, scans and procedures and deliver 30% more elective activity by 2024/25.

NHS England and NHS Improvement published the ‘Community health services prioritisation framework’ on 11 January 2022. This sets an expectation that community health services, including therapy services and the provision of wheelchairs, orthotics, prosthetics and equipment for children and young people which have been delayed or paused as a result of COVID-19, should resume from 1 March 2022.

Additionally, the ‘2022/23 priorities and operational planning guidance’, published in December 2021, includes a requirement for systems to develop and agree a plan for reducing community service waiting lists. Systems and providers have been asked to ensure that no-one is waiting for longer than 104 weeks for elective care by July 2022 and eliminate waiting times of over 78 weeks by April 2023, except where patients choose to wait longer or in specific specialities.