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 NHS treatment.

• The NHS is working incredibly hard to ensure those who have been waiting the longest receive treatment as soon as possible.
• We met our target to virtually eliminate waits of two years or more for elective procedures in July 2022. Waits of over 78 weeks were also virtually eliminated by the end of June 2023, in line with the conditions set out in the elective recovery plan. We have now moved our focus to cutting waits of 65 weeks or more to as near zero as possible, by March 2024.
• The government has allocated an additional £8 billion revenue funding and £5.9bn investment in NHS capital from 2022-25 to tackle the elective backlog and provide new beds, equipment, and technology.