Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to reduce wait times for diagnostic scans.

The ‘Delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlog of elective care’ published in February 2022 sets out how the National Health Service will increase capacity in and expand elective services in the next three years. We have committed to invest £2.3 billion to increase the volume of diagnostic activity and reduce patient waiting times. This includes the launch of up to 160 community diagnostic centres (CDCs) in the next three years to address backlogs for checks, such as magnetic resonance imaging, ultrasound and computed tomography scans. Since July 2021, CDCs have provided more than 1 million diagnostic scans.