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Select Committee · Public Accounts Committee

Reducing NHS waiting times for elective care

Status: Open Opened: 26 Mar 2025 5 recommendations 24 conclusions 1 report

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 …

Clear

Reports

1 report
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 items
5 Recommendation 55th Report - Reducing NHS waiting time… Acknowledged

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 specific and expert support between peers. The diagnostic transformation programme …

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
6 Conclusion 55th Report - Reducing NHS waiting time… Acknowledged

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 as the structural changes that are being made to Integrated …

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, …
HM Treasury
19 Conclusion 55th Report - Reducing NHS waiting time…

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 two teams and two boards providing separate governance arrangements, it …

HM Treasury

Oral evidence sessions

1 session
Date Witnesses
11 Sep 2025 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 View ↗

Correspondence

8 letters
DateDirectionTitle
12 Feb 2026 To cttee Letter from the Chief Executive NHS England regarding Indicative Activity Plans…
24 Nov 2025 To cttee Letter from the Permanent Secretary at the Department of Health and Social Care…
13 Nov 2025 To cttee Letter from the Chief Executive Officer of NHS England to the Chair relating to…
13 Nov 2025 To cttee Letter from the Chief Executive Officer of NHS England to the Chair relating to…
13 Nov 2025 To cttee Letter from the Permanent Secretary of the Department for Health and Social Car…
11 Sep 2025 To cttee Letter from the Permanent Secretary at the Department of Health and Social Care…
10 Sep 2025 From cttee Letter to the Permanent Secretary of the Department of Health and Social Care r…
10 Sep 2025 To cttee Letter from the Permanent Secretary of the Department of Health and Social Care…