5.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: Spring 2023 5.2 Future demand for elective services has been significantly affected by the pandemic and the government has done extensive work to model a range of scenarios to better understand the levels of ‘bounce-back’ demand. Modelling estimates that there could be over 7 million patients who did not come forward for treatment so far during the pandemic, a significant proportion of whom may do so in the coming years. 5.3 A number of tools have been made available to regions and systems to support the development of robust activity plans for the remainder of this year, as part of the formal activity planning process for the period. Since September 2020, NHSE&I have published analysis on the recovery of urgent cancer referrals and first treatments by age, sex, ethnicity, and deprivation. 5.4 Support has been provided to address variation in a number of areas such as establishing regional and national cancer teams, collaborative work with Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT), a national programme designed to improve the treatment and care of patients through in-depth review of services, benchmarking, and presenting a data-driven evidence base to support change. Improvements across the NHS in planning and delivery of all services, such as addressing the 104+ week waiters are a key priority along with minimising urgent cancer backlogs.