Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to restore the provision of respiratory care to pre-pandemic levels.

NHS England and NHS Improvement’s priorities include tackling the backlog for non-urgent treatment, such as for patients with respiratory diseases. This aims to eliminate waiting times of two years or more, arrest the increase in waiting times of one year and over and stabilise total waiting lists. We have made £1.5 billion available to assist local teams to increase their capacity and invest in other measures to achieve these priorities. NHS Digital’s data for 25 October 2021 shows 4,586 referrals were made for respiratory medicine, compared to 5,032 in January 2020.