55th Report - Reducing NHS waiting times for elective care
Select Committee
Public Accounts Committee
HC 820
19 November 2025
Government response
Treasury minutes: Government response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Thirty-fifth report from Session 2024-26 · published 19 Jan 2026
Recommendations & Conclusions
3 results
7
Conclusion
Deferred
Multiple factors contribute to rising elective care demand and capacity shortfalls
Conclusion
We also received written submissions from a range of individuals and organisations including clinicians and academics, royal colleges representing medical disciplines, care providers, think tanks and charitable organisations. A full list of the written evidence we received is available on …
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Government Response Summary
The government's response is entirely off-topic, detailing actions related to illegal meat imports, thereby failing to address the Public Accounts Committee's concerns regarding NHS elective care waiting times.
HM Treasury
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8
Conclusion
Deferred
NHS England consistently missed statutory and recovery elective care waiting targets
Conclusion
NHSE’s 2022 recovery plan ambition was to eliminate waits of longer than a year for elective care by March 2025. Within this, NHSE aimed that no one would wait longer than two years by July 2022, that there would be …
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Government Response Summary
The government's response is entirely off-topic, detailing actions related to animal vaccine availability, thereby failing to address the Public Accounts Committee's factual conclusions regarding NHS elective care recovery plan ambitions and missed statutory targets.
HM Treasury
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9
Conclusion
Deferred
Increased diagnostic capacity overwhelmed by surging demand, stalling waiting time progress
Conclusion
NHS England (NHSE) told us that the additional diagnostics capacity it had created had been quickly backfilled by growth in demand. Its progress on achieving the diagnostics recovery target remained stuck, with the number of patients waiting more than six …
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Government Response Summary
The government's response is entirely off-topic, detailing actions related to animal disease resilience and a Sanitary and Phytosanitary agreement with the EU, thereby failing to address the Public Accounts Committee's factual conclusions regarding NHS diagnostics capacity and targets.
HM Treasury
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