Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the capacity of the NHS to tackle the backlog of patients on long waiting lists after the covid-19 outbreak.

As well as continuing to treat COVID-19 patients, hospitals across the country are systematically prioritising and treating patients according to clinical need and preparing to accelerate routine elective services. Local systems are also planning for the potential return of additional patients who may not have sought treatment during the pandemic but have subsequently come forward and will appear on waiting lists during the year ahead.

The National Health Service will be supported by the £1 billion of funding recently announced in the Spending Review 2020, which will help address backlogs and tackle long waiting lists and facilitate up to one million extra checks, scans and additional operations. This is part of a £3 billion, one-year package for 2021/22 to support the NHS in tackling the impact of COVID-19.