UK Inquiry Tracker

Reducing NHS waiting times for elective care

Public Accounts Committee Open Inquiry

Opened: 26 Mar 2025 Parliament page

The NHS’ statutory waiting standards for planned non-emergency, or elective, care are that 92% of patients should begin treatment within 18 weeks. Patients on 59% of pathways, or 4.4m people, were waiting less than 18 weeks at the end of 2024. In 2022 NHS England (NHSE) launched three transformation programmes … Read more The NHS’ statutory waiting standards for planned non-emergency, or elective, care are that 92% of patients should begin treatment within 18 weeks. Patients on 59% of pathways, or 4.4m people, were waiting less than 18 weeks at the end of 2024. In 2022 NHS England (NHSE) launched three transformation programmes aiming to reduce waiting times for elective care. These will change how care is provided for surgery; for diagnostics; and for outpatients. Additional capital funding of £5.9bn was allocated for these programmes from 2022-23 to 2024-25. The PAC’s 2023 report on NHS backlogs and waiting times found that the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) oversaw years of decline in the NHS’s cancer and elective care waiting time performance and, even before the pandemic, did not increase capacity sufficiently to meet growing demand. Its 2025 report on the NHS’ financial sustainability warned of a lack of fresh thinking and decisive action within NHS England and DHSC paired with overly optimistic planning assumptions. The NAO’s 2025 report on NHSE’s management of elective care transformation programmes looked at the plans for recovering waiting times, which aim to achieve the statutory standard by 2029. Based on the report, the PAC will hear from senior officials at NHSE and DHSC on subjects including: Progress on targets to increase elective activity and end long waits for treatment; Progress across the three areas of diagnosis, surgery, and outpatients; and Governance and oversight of the transformation programmes. Please look at the requirements for written evidence submissions and note that the Committee cannot accept material as evidence that is published elsewhere. Please note that the Committee’s inquiry cannot assist with individual cases. If you need help with an individual problem you are having, you may wish to read the information on Parliament’s website about who you can contact with different issues . If you have evidence on these issues please submit it here by 23:59 on Thursday 28 August 2025. Show less

5 Recommendations

24 Conclusions

1 Report

1 Oral session

8 Letters

1 Event

Activity timeline 12 events

12 Feb
2026

Correspondence

Letter from the Chief Executive NHS England regarding Indicative Activity Plans (IAPs) and their impact on waiting list, 23 January 2026

19 Jan
2026

Report published

Treasury minutes: Government response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Thirty-fifth report from Session 2024-26

24 Nov
2025

Correspondence

Letter from the Permanent Secretary at the Department of Health and Social Care relating to a follow up to the Committee’s oral evidence se…

19 Nov
2025

Report published

55th Report - Reducing NHS waiting times for elective care

13 Nov
2025

Correspondence

Letter from the Chief Executive Officer of NHS England to the Chair relating to several matters concerning elective transformation programm…

13 Nov
2025

Correspondence

Letter from the Chief Executive Officer of NHS England to the Chair relating to ICB roles and responsibilities (Elective care) following fr…

13 Nov
2025

Correspondence

Letter from the Permanent Secretary of the Department for Health and Social Care relating to overseas patients follow up from the Committee…

11 Sep
2025

Oral evidence

Oral evidence session

11 Sep
2025

Correspondence

Letter from the Permanent Secretary at the Department of Health and Social Care relating to clarification on the data provided on elective …

11 Sep
2025

Formal meeting (oral evidence session) · The Grimond Room, Portcullis House

Committee event

10 Sep
2025

Correspondence

Letter to the Permanent Secretary of the Department of Health and Social Care relating to further updates on figures ahead of the inquiry i…

10 Sep
2025

Correspondence

Letter from the Permanent Secretary of the Department of Health and Social Care and the Chief Executive Officer at NHS England relating to …

Oral evidence sessions 1 session

11 Sep 2025

View on parliament.uk

Mark Cubbon · NHS England Matt Style · Department for Health and Social Care Professor Meghana Pandit · NHS England Samantha Jones · Department of Health and Social Care Sir Jim Mackey · NHS England

Reports 1 report · click to expand

Title	HC No.	Published	Items	Response
55th Report - Reducing NHS waiting times for elective care	HC 820	19 Nov 2025	29	Responded

Recommendations & Conclusions

5 results

5 Recommendation Acknowledged

55th Report - Reducing NHS waiting…

Require the Department to set out new plans for securing clinical engagement on outpatient transformation.

NHS England’s performance to date has not demonstrated that it can secure the clinical engagement that will be necessary to transform waiting lists. Clinical engagement has worked best when there been close working between national and local clinical leaders, and … Read more

Government Response

The government agrees and states it is strengthening clinical engagement, referencing existing plans and recent engagement events with clinicians, but does not outline specific new actions it will take to secure engagement differently for the outpatients transformation programme.

HM Treasury

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6 Conclusion Acknowledged

55th Report - Reducing NHS waiting…

Require Department to confirm no unfunded commitments and assess costs of structural changes.

We are concerned that the Department for Health and Social Care and NHS England are still announcing major reforms without either delivery plans or secured funding. We do not accept that it is prudent to make a major change, such … Read more

Government Response

The government agrees, stating ICBs are designing new staffing structures within existing budgets and discussing strengthened Health and Wellbeing Boards' coordination with local authorities, but it does not confirm it will not announce unfunded commitments or provide the requested costs, funding, and impact assessment for ICB redundancies and the absorption of NHS England.

HM Treasury

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16 Conclusion

55th Report - Reducing NHS waiting…

Department confirmed significant funding and operational numbers for diagnostic and surgical centres.

The Department wrote to us on 10 September 2025 to confirm that it has drawn down £2.2 billion of capital funding for diagnostic transformation and £1.04 billion for surgical hubs. It also confirmed that 122 surgical hubs were operational in … Read more

HM Treasury

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18 Conclusion

55th Report - Reducing NHS waiting…

Diagnostic capacity rapidly absorbed by demand, compounded by confusion over surgical hub delivery numbers.

NHSE told us that the additional diagnostic capacity it has created has been quickly taken up by growth in demand and that the NHS was also trying to control non-elective urgent demand.37 We were told however that while it was … Read more

HM Treasury

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19 Conclusion

55th Report - Reducing NHS waiting…

Surgical hub governance structures less developed, with metrics misaligned to actual activity outcomes.

The NAO report found that the diagnostic programme has the most established governance structure and there was evidence of in-depth reporting, while governance was less developed for surgical transformation hubs.40 The Department told us that whilst it had previously had … Read more

HM Treasury

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Government Response AI assessment · 26 of 5 classified

Accepted 21

Acknowledged 2

Deferred 3

Total 5 recs + 24 conclusions

Correspondence 8 letters

12 Feb 2026 To committee Letter from the Chief Executive NHS England regarding Indicative Activity Plans (IAPs) and their impact on waiting list, 23 January 2026

Parliament page

24 Nov 2025 To committee Letter from the Permanent Secretary at the Department of Health and Social Care relating to a follow up to the Committee’s oral evidence session on 11 September 2025 on Reducing NHS waiting times for elective care, 13 November 2025

Parliament page

13 Nov 2025 To committee Letter from the Chief Executive Officer of NHS England to the Chair relating to several matters concerning elective transformation programme performance (Elective care) following from the Committee’s session on 11 September, 6 November 2025

Parliament page

13 Nov 2025 To committee Letter from the Chief Executive Officer of NHS England to the Chair relating to ICB roles and responsibilities (Elective care) following from the Committee’s session on 11 September, 6 November 2025

Parliament page

13 Nov 2025 To committee Letter from the Permanent Secretary of the Department for Health and Social Care relating to overseas patients follow up from the Committee session on 11 September, 30 October 2025

Parliament page

11 Sep 2025 To committee Letter from the Permanent Secretary at the Department of Health and Social Care relating to clarification on the data provided on elective care, 10 September 2025

Parliament page

10 Sep 2025 From committee Letter to the Permanent Secretary of the Department of Health and Social Care relating to further updates on figures ahead of the inquiry into Reducing NHS waiting times for elective care, 03 September 2025

Parliament page

10 Sep 2025 To committee Letter from the Permanent Secretary of the Department of Health and Social Care and the Chief Executive Officer at NHS England relating to the follow up on relevant figures ahead of the inquiry on NHS elective care, 01 September 2025

Parliament page