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 waiting times for (a) routine screening appointments, (b) cancer treatment and (c) surgical procedures in the NHS.

The ‘Delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlog of elective care’ sets out how the National Health Service will recover and expand elective services over the next three years. We have allocated more than £8 billion from 2022/23 to 2024/25, in addition to the £2 billion Elective Recovery Fund and £700 million Targeted Investment Fund already made available in 2021/2022 to increase elective activity. This funding aims to deliver the equivalent of approximately nine million additional checks and procedures and 30% further elective activity by 2024/25 than pre-pandemic levels.

NHS England has committed to ensuring that 95% of patients who need a diagnostic test receive it within six weeks, by March 2025. The National Health Service will also work with patient groups and stakeholders to monitor and improve waiting times for outpatient appointments over the next three years.

NHS England has committed that 75% of patients who have been urgently referred by their general practitioner for suspected cancer are diagnosed or have cancer ruled out within 28 days by March 2024. Community diagnostic centres will increase diagnostic capacity and ensure earlier detection and increasing use of surgical hubs will reduce delays in treatment. NHS England is using innovative techniques and adopting pioneering technology such as artificial intelligence and robotic surgery and it has launched the My Planned Care platform, which provides data on average waiting times for every NHS provider.