Recommendation 5

During our session on 30 June 2020, Sir Simon Stevens told us that he “expects” waiting times for and referrals to core health services to “go up quite significantly over the second half of the year.” We also heard from Sir Simon, Amanda Pritchard and Professor Steve Powis of the importance of restoring core services for patients. It nevertheless remains unclear to us what practical steps the Government and NHSE/I are taking and are planning to take to reduce waiting times, meet the backlog of appointments and prepare the NHS for addressing pent-up demand. The absence of a public plan to address these issues may be contributing to the inability of local trusts to inform patients when they can expect to receive a long-awaited medical procedure. Nevertheless, we do also recognise the significant difficulty in planning ahead when the risk of a second spike remains unclear.