Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of waiting times for the diagnosis of endometriosis.

No formal assessment has been made from the Department. Gynaecology waiting lists in England, numbers of women waiting and their waiting times are tracked and managed as part of the overall National Health Service focus on reducing the amount of time patients are waiting for elective care.

Patients with symptoms of endometriosis will be prioritised based on clinical need. The NHS-led Provider Collaborative has identified endometriosis as a priority area and recently established a group to develop further initiatives to reduce waiting times for endometriosis patients.

To help tackle waiting lists, including in gynaecology and endometriosis related surgery the Government plans to spend more than £8 billion over the next three years, in addition to the £2 billion Elective Recovery Fund and £700 million Targeted Investment Fund already made available to systems last year to drive up elective activity and tackle long waiting lists.  The Government is investing an additional £3.3 billion in each of 2023/24 and 2024/25 to support the NHS in England, enabling rapid action to improve emergency, elective and primary care performance towards pre-pandemic levels.

Taken together, this funding could deliver the equivalent of nine million more checks, scans and procedures and will mean the NHS in England can aim to deliver around 30% more elective activity by 2024/25 than it was before the pandemic.

The Government and NHS have published a delivery plan setting out how this funding will be used to recover from the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic and transform how planned services are delivered for the long-term benefit of all patients, including women.

The Elective Recovery plan set out NHS England’s ambition to deliver 130% of pre-elective activity by 2024/25. Bringing more community diagnostic centres and surgical hubs on stream are key to delivering more activity, both are part of the ‘Getting it Right First Time’ High-Volume Low-Complexity programme which can provide faster access to care and reduce waiting times including gynaecological procedures such as endometriosis related surgery.