Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans his Department has to use the £5.9 billion NHS COVID recovery funding, announced at the Spending Review on 27 October 2021, to tackle the backlog in assessments for disabled children’s health services.

On 6 September 2021 we announced over £8 billion for the National Health Service to provide elective care that was delayed by the pandemic for the Spending Review period 2022/23 to 2024/25. We also announced an additional £5.4 billion to support the COVID-19 response over the next six months, bringing the total Government support for health services in response to COVID-19 to over £34 billion in 2021/22. This includes £2 billion to tackle the elective backlog and reduce waiting times for patients, including disabled children.