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 tackle the backlog in elective care following the covid-19 outbreak.

In February 2022, the National Health Service published ‘Delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlog of elective care’ which sets out how the NHS will recover and expand elective services over the next three years. We are investing more than £8 billion for elective care from 2022 to 2025, in addition to the £2 billion Elective Recovery Fund and £700 million Targeted Investment Fund made available to systems in 2021 to increase elective activity and tackle long waiting lists. This funding aims to deliver the equivalent of approximately nine million more checks, scans and procedures and by 2024/25, deliver 30% more elective activity compared to pre-pandemic levels.

The 2021 Spending Review announced a further £5.9 billion to support the recovery of elective services, diagnostics and technology. This includes £2.3 billion to establish 160 community diagnostic centres by 2025 to provide additional capacity for clinical tests, such as magnetic resonance imaging, ultrasound and computerised tomography scans.