Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made an assessment of which NHS Trusts (a) were and (b) were not on track to meet their 18 month targets in the elective recovery plan as of 1 July 2023.

Thanks to the work of National Health Service staff, we have now virtually eliminated waits of over 18 months, in line with the targets set out in the elective recovery plan.

The most recently published NHS England management information showed that on 2 July there were 7,363 patients waiting over 18 months, a reduction of over 94% from the peak of 125,000 in September 2021.

As of 2 July, 31 trusts have no patients waiting 18 months or more, whilst 114 of the 136 trusts have less than 100 remaining.