Mr. Bernard Gloster:

We are grappling with a broad canvas of issues. When I took up this post, the issues I set out very clearly and agreed with the Government on were access, which is all of the times people wait for different services, whether on a trolley or for procedure, timely implementation, because we were very good at planning but not so good at implementation, and public confidence.

The appointment of the six regional executive officers and the delayering in the centre in their direct reporting to me is significant in bringing about the pulling together of all community and hospital services. The six regional executive officers now have full delegated authority for public health, hospitals and community healthcare. Therefore, they can bring all of the systems together to facilitate people. Their dedicated focus on this and their reporting to me directly does that.

I am conscious that there is significant increased demand and there has been a great deal of narrative around emergency departments in the past few weeks. I want to be very clear that one person on a trolley is one person too many. In terms of focusing on improvement, despite increased demand last year over a six-month period in the closing half of 2023 we managed to reduce the real trolley count by about 20% compared with the six months of the previous year. That is significant.

In terms of people on waiting lists, in particular for outpatients, inpatient day cases and scopes, while we reduced the overall size of waiting lists by about 2.7%, fundamentally, we reduced the length of time people are obliged to wait substantially. Rather than concentrating on the numbers on the lists, we focused on how long people are on them. They are early improvements, but to be fair to people who are waiting today my job is to focus on them. As a result, we will have to do a lot more on that side. That is the focus for this year.