We sought reassurance that all additional funding would be well spent and asked for examples of the measurable improvements that we could reasonably expect to see. We heard generally from the Department that with the additional £8 billion recovery funding it wanted to restore activity to the highest level possible and that the £5.9 billion of capital funding would enable a total of 9 million additional health checks, scans and procedures by 2024. More specifically, NHSE&I stated that in the second half of 2021–22 it would spend £700 million to create additional theatres, surgical hubs and diagnostic facilities and to start the separation of urgent and elective care so that urgent care is less able to disrupt elective care.20 It said these actions together would increase the number of beds available for elective care by 566 by March 2022.21 This is welcome but very small in scale: for comparison, the number of general and acute beds available daily between November 2020 and September 2021 was on average around 86,000 beds.22 12 Q28 13 Health and Social Care Committee, Clearing the backlog caused by the pandemic, ninth report of session 2021–22, HC 599, para 5 14 Q31 15 NHS England & NHS Improvement, Delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlog of elective care, February 2022 16 Q100 17 C&AG’s Report, pages 36, 40 18 Q40 19 Q44 20 Qq 46, 47 21 Q43 22 C&AG’s Report, page 32 NHS backlogs and waiting times in England 11 Recovery planning and workforce