Recommendation 9

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 around 20%. It acknowledged that a great deal of focus would be required over the next year to make progress. NHSE told us that the growth in diagnostic demand was far in excess of the modelling it did to map out the delivery path.15 NHSE had not set a specific requirement for NHS organisations to meet the diagnostic target for 2025–26, although it wanted them to work towards it. It would consider whether to reset the diagnostic waiting time target as a requirement for next year.16