Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what proportion of new NHS care appointments he plans to provide in child health services.

The National Health Service is broken, and reducing elective waiting lists is a key part of getting it back on its feet. Delivering 40,000 more NHS appointments per week, or two million per year, is part of our commitment to get back to NHS standards so that both adults and children can expect to wait no longer than 18 weeks for treatment.

This will mean that children waiting for elective treatment will also experience significant improvements in waiting times, care, and outcomes. Further detail regarding 40,000 more NHS appointments per week will be confirmed after the budget in October 2024.