Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government by how much waiting times have risen since May 2010 for those patients who are not treated for common forms of surgery within the 18 weeks waiting limit.

Referral to treatment waiting times data, which measure waiting times from referral to the start of consultant-led treatment for non-urgent conditions, does not distinguish between patients waiting for surgery and patients waiting for other types of consultant-led treatment.

At the end of July 2015 there were 232,424 people waiting more than 18 weeks to start consultant led treatment compared to 209,411 in May 2010, an increase of 23,013 people. The main driver for this increase is the growth in demand for elective care over the period due to a range of demographic and other factors such as technological changes in the provision of care. However, the number of people waiting more than 18 weeks as a proportion of the total number of people waiting to start consultant-led treatment is lower in July 2015 than in May 2010, 7.1% of the total waiting list compared to 8.1% in May 2010.

The average median waiting times for all patients who started treatment and that involved an admission during July 2015 was 9.1 weeks compared to 8.4 weeks in May 2010. The time waited for those patients who had waited more than 18 weeks to start treatment is not separately identified.