An intervention from the Treasury has forced health secretary Sajid Javid to delay the unveiling of plans to address the NHS backlog of patients waiting for elective procedures, The Telegraph reports.
The plans for cutting the NHS England backlog were due to be published on Monday prior to Whitehall putting the announcement on hold.
However, Javid has denied that the Treasury was responsible for blocking the multi-billion-pound catch-up programme, instead singling out the Omicron wave of Covid as the reason behind the delay.
He said that the full plans for dealing with the backlog were due to be publicised in December 2021, but the emergence of the Omicron variant meant that efforts were diverted toward the booster vaccine rollout.
Javid said: “There's no issue around the money at all. It's all about just making sure that when you publish something so ambitious and so important, we do want to make sure across government everything is agreed and everyone is behind the plan.”
A government spokesperson said separately that ministers were “united in our plan to clear the NHS’s record backlog.”
The delay has caused frustration within the NHS, with the NHS Confederation’s chief executive, Matt Taylor, telling the BBC that sector leaders just “want to get on” with dealing with record waiting lists.
Six million patients were on the waiting list for non-urgent surgery and procedures in England in November 2021, and the health secretary indicated that the number was likely to rise again before starting to subside.
Javid suggested that the rising numbers would be driven by an estimated eight-to-nine million individuals who at the height of the pandemic stayed away from the NHS and have developed problems during lockdown that now require treatment.
In the meantime, the government has said that a new online service will be launched to provide people with waiting times for non-urgent procedures that they may require.
Prime minister Boris Johnson said that the government would announce further details “in the course of the week” as the government looks to agree a set of “tough targets” with the NHS to help “deliver for patients and the taxpayer.”
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