Commenting on an NHS England and NHS Improvement letter on Enabling the workforce for elective recovery, the chief executive of NHS Providers, Chris Hopson said:

"Trust leaders are absolutely committed to bearing down on waiting times as quickly as possible, while ensuring the health and wellbeing of their staff is protected.

"With over six million people now waiting for treatment and wider care backlogs for community and mental health services, it's important to keep exploring ideas for how we can accelerate backlog recovery by expanding workforce capacity in the NHS.

"Trust leaders are already implementing a range of initiatives to reduce waiting times for treatments. This includes enabling those nearing retirement, or who have recently retired, to stay on in the NHS and offering staff greater flexibility over their working hours. It is important for best practice to be explored and rolled out across the health service.

"But we cannot disguise the fact that the NHS simply doesn't have enough staff. Our teams are working incredibly hard to cut waiting times, but pressures on our overstretched staff, and persistent major workforce shortages, are the significant limiting factor preventing trusts from going even faster.

"We have 110,000 vacancies in trusts alone, high levels of burnout and worrying numbers of staff resigning from the service. Asking existing staff to do more isn't enough.

"We need a long-term, fully funded workforce plan for the NHS."