Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what independent assessment has been made of the removal of 16 per cent of the East Sussex waiting list through "error identification" as described in the NHS England board papers for 2 February; and how many of those removed were subsequently added back on to the waiting list.

Whilst no independent assessment has been carried out on the removal of patients from the waiting list at East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust, this has been investigated by NHS England and identified as an error in reporting.

The correct percentage of the waiting list that was flagged for removal through error identification is 14%.

At a local level, there is a requirement to follow three stages in waiting list validation: technical, administrative and clinical. Patients who are initially flagged for removal then undergo a manual validation stage whereby trust staff validate that the identified patients should be removed before actioning this themselves. This is supported by local governance arrangements and clinical oversight, to ensure that patients are removed safely and appropriately. All patients removed from waiting lists following validation are notified of this stage in their care pathway. Therefore, it is not expected that any patients would need be ‘readded’ due to the processes in place.