Skip to main content

Surgery: Greater London

Question for Department of Health and Social Care

UIN 61703, tabled on 12 October 2022

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her department is taking to reduce waiting times for elective surgeries at each healthcare trust in southeast London.

This answer is the replacement for a previous holding answer.

Answered on

18 October 2022

The ‘Delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlog of elective care’ how the National Health Service will recover and expand elective services over the next three years, including in south east London. We have allocated more than £8 billion from 2022/23 to 2024/25, in addition to the £2 billion Elective Recovery Fund and £700 million Targeted Investment Fund already made available in 2021/2022 to increase elective activity. This funding aims to deliver the equivalent of approximately nine million additional checks and procedures and 30% further elective activity by 2024/25 than pre-pandemic levels. A proportion of this funding will be invested in workforce capacity and training and we have committed to invest £5.9 billion for new beds, equipment and technology.

The target to eliminate waiting times of two years or more for elective procedures was met in July 2022 and we aim to eliminate waiting time of eighteen months or more by April 2023. This will be achieved through increasing capacity, seeking alternate capacity in other trusts or the independent sector and engaging with patients to understand choices made regarding their care.

Named day
Named day questions only occur in the House of Commons. The MP tabling the question specifies the date on which they should receive an answer. MPs may not table more than five named day questions on a single day.