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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

3 items
7 Conclusion 55th Report - Reducing NHS waiting time… Deferred

Multiple factors contribute to rising elective care demand and capacity shortfalls

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 the inquiry page of the Committee’s website.11 Particular issues and …

Government response. 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
8 Conclusion 55th Report - Reducing NHS waiting time… Deferred

NHS England consistently missed statutory and recovery elective care waiting targets

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 no waits of over 18 months by April 2023, and …

Government response. 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
9 Conclusion 55th Report - Reducing NHS waiting time… Deferred

Increased diagnostic capacity overwhelmed by surging demand, stalling waiting time progress

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 weeks remaining fairly flat over the past twelve months at …

Government response. 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

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…