Baroness Golding

The Darzi Report highlights the significant underinvestment of capital in the National Health Service, with outdated scanners, too little automation, and a failure to enter the digital era. Patients have been let down for too long whilst they wait for the care they need, including diagnostic testing, which is key to the majority of elective and cancer pathways.

£1.65 billion of additional capital funding has been allocated in the budget for 2025/26 to support NHS performance across secondary and emergency care. This investment includes funding for new surgical hubs and diagnostic scanners, to build capacity for over 30,000 additional procedures and over 1.25 million diagnostic tests as they come online, new beds across the estate to create more treatment space in emergency departments, reduce waiting times, and help shift more care into the community, and £70 million to invest in new radiotherapy machines to improve cancer treatment.

As detailed in the 2025/26 capital guidance, published on 30 January 2025, NHS England has provided systems with their operational capital envelopes, which include funding for the replacement of diagnostic scanners, such as computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging machines, and radiotherapy equipment, outside of national programme funding. These allocations are managed locally, with systems prioritising investments in line with their clinical and operational needs. Some targeted national programme funding is also available for strategic priorities, such as the expansion of Community Diagnostic Centres and the improvement of cancer treatment capacity.

Future capital investment beyond 2025/26, including funding for the replacement of medical diagnostic equipment from 2026/27 onwards, will be considered as part of the next Spending Review.

The Elective Reform Plan, published in January 2025, sets out the reforms needed to return to the 18-week Referral to Treatment (RTT) constitutional standard by March 2029, a standard which has not been met consistently since September 2015. The plan commits to transforming and expanding diagnostic services, and speeding up waiting times for tests, a crucial part of reducing overall waiting times and returning to the RTT standard.