Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will make it his policy to guarantee that all patients who had their operations cancelled as a result of the proposed industrial action by junior doctors will be offered another date for their operation within the next 28 days.

The NHS is making every effort to rearrange treatment for people whose operations were cancelled as quickly as possible.

We recognise that cancellations by the hospital are upsetting and inconvenient for patients, which is why there is a pledge on cancelled operations in the Handbook on the NHS Constitution. When a patient’s operation is cancelled by the hospital at the last minute (on or after the day of admission, including the day of surgery) for non-clinical reasons, the hospital should offer another binding date within a maximum of the next 28 days or fund the patient’s treatment at the time and hospital of the patient’s choice.

For operations that were cancelled before the day of admission, the pledge does not apply. However, the NHS Constitution includes the right “to access services within maximum waiting times, or for the NHS to take all reasonable steps to offer you a range of alternative providers if this is not possible”. Patients have the right to start consultant-led treatment within a maximum of 18 weeks from referral for non-urgent conditions. If this is not possible, and where patients request it, the organisation responsible for commissioning the patient’s care must investigate offering a range of suitable alternative providers that would be able to see or treat the patient more quickly than the original provider. The commissioning organisation must take all reasonable steps to meet patients’ requests.