RCPCH responds to Elective Recovery Plan

Paediatricians reiterate need for adequate workforce planning and funding for to tackle out of control waiting times for child health services.
Health professionals in scrubs walking down hospital corridor

The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) welcomes the latest NHS England Elective Recovery Plan, which includes an explicit commitment to equitable delivery of elective services for children and young people alongside adults.

The newly published plan will deliver change in three key areas: 

  • Improved waiting times 
  • More convenient access to care 
  • Improved patient experience

This includes a headline ambition to return to the constitutional standard of 92% of patients waiting no longer than 18 weeks from referral to treatment by March 2029. 

RCPCH Officer for Health Services, Dr Ronny Cheung, said: 

Over the past few years, we have been increasingly concerned that children and young people are not visible enough within our healthcare system. As a result, we have seen massive disparities between waiting times for children and adults, exacerbated by a child health service operating at only 80% of its full capacity because of a depleted paediatric workforce.  

Children did not feature nearly enough in the last elective recovery plan, so it is reassuring to see them given more visibility in this new four-year plan. It is essential now that local areas are sufficiently supported to deliver for children, to address the under-recognised need for investment to restore the paediatric workforce, and to take concrete and urgent action to eliminate the disparity between adult and children in 18-week targets. 

RCPCH President, Professor Steve Turner added: 

No child should be waiting longer than 18 weeks for care. In our blueprint for child health services, we called for equity in recovery for children’s waiting times in line with adults, and this plan is a welcome step in that direction. We urgently need to see the necessary investment and resources prioritised in the spending review to make this plan go further and faster for children. Now the hard work starts to turn this four-year plan into tangible reality and transform child health services from being left behind to leading the way.