DHSC and NHS England: Reforming elective care for patients (6 January 2025)

Summary

The Government's new plan sets out how the NHS will reform elective care services and meet the 18 week referral to treatment standard by March 2029.

Under this plan elective care will be increasingly personalised and digital, with a focus on improving experience and convenience, and empowering people with choice and control over when and where they will be treated.

Content

To meet the 18-week standard and reform elective care by March 2029, the plan focuses on:

• Empowering patients by giving them more choice and control, and by establishing the standards they can expect to make their experience of planned NHS care as smooth, supportive and convenient as possible.
• Reforming delivery by working more productively, consistently – and in many cases differently – to deliver more elective care.
• Delivering care in the right place to make sure patients receive their care from skilled healthcare professionals in the right setting.
• Aligning funding, performance oversight and delivery standards, with clear responsibilities and incentives for reform, robust and regular oversight of performance, and clear expectations for how elective care will be delivered at a local level.