Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential effect of the covid-19 outbreak on the ability of the NHS to meet targets.

The National Health Service is facing significant pressure as it responds to patient demand from COVID-19 cases and it is a success that hospital capacity has met the demand for services. The action taken to free up capacity has included the postponement of non-urgent elective treatment while protecting urgent services such as cancer. The response that has been needed is likely, therefore, to impact on the NHS’s ability to meet NHS waiting times standards for routine elective care.