To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to help tackle regional variations in the uptake of the Advice and Guidance scheme; and what support is being provided to regions with lower adoption rates.

The Elective Reform Plan, published in January 2025, outlines actions to significantly increase the use of Advice and Guidance (A&G), including reducing geographic variation. This includes the introduction of funding from April 2025 for general practitioners to recognise the importance of their role in ensuring patient care takes place in the most appropriate setting, as well as developing supporting resources such as an A&G toolkit with guidance for commissioners, referrers and secondary care clinical teams.

The Department and NHS England closely monitor progress on A&G volumes, and there are robust mechanisms for system oversight and reporting. This includes the operational delivery framework for integrated care boards. The framework sets out a roadmap to help services develop their ability expand and improve their use of A&G across seven themes and with a set of minimum standards for best practice. This is helping NHS England work with local teams to address known barriers causing variation of uptake in A&G, including use of digital platforms, improving the quality of A&G, and workforce planning, training and development.