Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he plans to take to reduce the average waiting time for patients with appointments in eye clinics in England for the treatment of wet and of dry age-related macular degeneration.

The National Health Service has continued to prioritise urgent treatment for sight-threatening eye conditions, such as wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Currently, there are no medical treatments for dry AMD, therefore these patients will not be waiting for therapeutic intervention.

We are providing £2 billion through the Elective Recovery Fund to reduce waiting times, including for patients with AMD. We have also committed £8 billion from 2022 to 2025 to transform elective services and increase activity and a further £5.9 billion capital funding to support elective recovery, diagnostics and technology. We will publish the delivery plan for tackling the elective backlog in due course.