Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Conclusion 3
55th Report - Reducing NHS waiting times for elective care
Published 19 Nov 2025
Addressed to HM Treasury
Public Accounts Committee Reducing NHS waiting times for elective care All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
NHS England’s approach to transformational change was deeply flawed in both monitoring of progress and the delivery of intended outcomes. NHS England’s diagnostic transformation programme displayed positive features of programme management and achieved planned increases in numbers of diagnostic tests. The planned number of Community Care Centres were also delivered on time. However, the programme did not deliver the intended outcomes of reducing waiting times. Internal NHS England analysis found that there was a shortfall of 3.6 million tests. This led to the recovery target of 5% of waits for diagnostic tests being no more than six weeks being missed, with 22% of patients waiting over six weeks. These flaws have been compounded by NHS England and the Department not setting up the surgical and outpatients transformation programmes effectively enough to measure their impacts and benefits. Ultimately, the Department has approved billions of pounds of spending without sufficient focus on what exactly these programmes will deliver. recommendation The Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England should: a. Set up data collections or processes for tracking costs and benefits as early as possible when setting up new services or transforming existing services including the recent extension of specialist telephone advice to GPs. b. Focus reporting on the achievement of policy aims (expected outcomes for patients) to ensure that the capital funding provided delivers intended outcomes. 3
From: Public Accounts Committee, 55th Report - Reducing NHS waiting times for elective care (HC 820), 19 November 2025
Government response
Latest Treasury Minutes progress report to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Fifty-fifth Report of Session 2024-26
The government responded to the whole report on 4 June 2026 (deadline 19 January 2026).
Treasury minutes: Government response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Thirty-fifth report from Session 2024-26
Published 19 January 2026.
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government states that it agrees with the Committee's recommendations, and for most it says the recommendation is already implemented, with target dates for the rest.
- On diagnostic waits, it says the NHS Medium Term Planning Framework requires all systems to achieve the 1% standard for six week waits, with a plan for reaching it "by March 2029".
- On outpatients, it says it is "essential to transform outpatient care" to reach 92% of patients waiting no longer than 18 weeks by March 2029; further details "will be published in due course".
- On digital and data, it sets target dates: January 2026 for a single Planned Care Capital Assurance Board, and April 2026 for programmes to tackle digital maturity gaps, while acknowledging "the system is not where it needs to be".
- On unfunded announcements, it says it "will aim to ensure" announcements come with a delivery and affordability plan "wherever possible and appropriate", and that it will publish an impact assessment for the primary legislation on NHS England's integration into DHSC.