Recommendation 14

The Department and NHSE&I are now managing a large, growing and diverse set of challenges to elective and cancer care on top of the ongoing pandemic. We asked how the Department and NHSE&I expected the accelerated and expanded vaccine booster programme, announced on 12 December 2021, to impact on elective and cancer care. NHSE&I told us that GPs would be asked to focus on vaccinations and that people would be asked to forego some routine GP appointments. It stated that there was uncertainty over the size of any COVID-19 wave in January 2022 but that it would only cancel elective care where it had to and that it planned to keep going with high-priority emergency treatments, cancer operations and operations for life-threatening conditions.33 Patient needs