Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of waiting times for (a) appointments and (b) scans following a referral from a GP.

The current national waiting list stands at 7.43 million, with 58.9% of those having waited less than 18 weeks and with a median waiting time of 14.4 weeks from referral. We will ensure that 92% of patients return to waiting no longer than 18 weeks from referral to treatment by March 2029, a standard which has not been met consistently since September 2015.

As a first step, we have delivered an additional two million operations, scans, and appointments across elective services between July and November 2024 compared to the same period in 2023, seven months ahead of schedule. The Elective Reform Plan (ERP), published in January 2025, sets out the productivity and reform efforts needed to return to the 18-week standard, including reforms to outpatient care to reduce waiting times for appointments, increasing advice & guidance to ensure patient care takes place in the right setting, and reducing missed and less clinically valuable appointments to free up capacity for patients with greater clinical need.

As of January 2025, 1.62 million patients were waiting for a diagnostic test or scan, of which approximately 1.26 million, or 77.6% of, patients had been waiting for less than six weeks.

To further improve waiting times for scans, the ERP commits to transform and expand diagnostic services including investment in new and expanded community diagnostic centres (CDCs), expanding the number of CDCs operating 12 hours a day, seven days a week, and expanding the tests they offer. We will also develop and roll out straight to test pathways, reducing the time taken for patients to receive a test after a general practitioner referral, as well further improvements to the National Health Service’s digital capabilities.