Sir Keir Starmer will launch his plan to deliver millions more appointments across the NHS and to reduce waiting times to 18 weeks over the next five years.

The prime minister will lay out how greater access to community diagnostic centres (CDCs) will help deliver up to half a million more appointments, alongside 14 new surgical hubs and three expanded existing hubs.

Up to a million appointments could be freed up by giving patients the choice to forego follow-up appointments currently booked by default, the government says.

Overall, the plan will involve a drive to deliver two million extra appointments by the end of next year.

The aim of the reforms is that by the end of March 2026, an extra 450,000 patients will be treated within 18 weeks.

Figures published by NHS England last month showed an estimated 7.54 million treatments were waiting to be carried out at the end of October – the lowest figure since March 2024.

According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), the last time the NHS met the target of 92% of patients receiving treatment within 18 weeks was in 2015.

The reforms for England will also see an overhaul of the NHS app to give patients greater choice over where they choose to have their appointment and will also provide greater detail to the patient including their results and waiting times.

The first step in the digital overhaul will be completed by March 2025, when patients at over 85% of acute trusts will be able to view their appointment details via the NHS app, the government said.

They’ll also be able to contact their provider and receive updates, including how long they are likely to wait for treatment.

In the effort to free-up one million appointments, patients will be given more choice over non-essential follow up appointments, while GPs will also be given funding to receive specialist advice from doctors before they make any referrals.

Sir Keir is expected to say: “This government promised change and that is what I am fighting every day to deliver.

“NHS backlogs have ballooned in recent years, leaving millions of patients languishing on waiting lists, often in pain or fear. Lives on hold. Potential unfulfilled.

“This elective reform plan will deliver on our promise to end the backlogs. Millions more appointments. Greater choice and convenience for patients. Staff once again able to give the standard of care they desperately want to.”

The CDCs will be open 12 hours a day and seven days a week wherever possible. Patients will be able to access a broader range of appointments in locations that are more convenient for them and which may speed up the pace of treatment.

The government believes its plan will help it to deliver the equivalent to 40,000 extra appointments a week in its first year – which was one of Sir Keir’s six key pledges.

Chancellor Rachel Reeve pledged £22bn over the next two years to cut NHS waiting times in her October budget, but some in the sector fear a workforce shortage means the prime minister’s ambitions will be hard to achieve.

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There have been some concerns that giving patients choice of the location of their treatment may see some hospitals in greater demand than others – but Health Secretary Wes Streeting said this was a “matter of principle”.

“When I was diagnosed with kidney cancer, I was inundated with colleagues in parliament who were asking who my surgeon was, whether I was going to the best place for treatment, whether I was exercising my right to choose in the NHS,” he said.

“Now, it turned out I had one of the best kidney cancer surgeons in the country assigned to me by the NHS, so I was lucky.

“But frankly, someone like my mum as a cleaner should have as much choice and power in the NHS as her son, the health secretary.”

NHS chief executive Amanda Pritchard said the government’s plan was an “ambitious blueprint”.

“The radical reforms in this plan will not only allow us to deliver millions more tests, appointments and operations, but do things differently too – boosting convenience and putting more power in the hands of patients, especially through the NHS app.”

For British politicians, the question of the moment is how do you handle Elon Musk?

The billionaire owner of X and Tesla, soon to take up a role as efficiency tsar in the Trump administration, has been throwing grenades almost every hour about British politics on his social media platform and dominating the headlines.

Much of it is inflammatory claims about Keir Starmer and his government – despite their efforts to build good relations with Donald Trump.

And until today, enthusiastic backing for Nigel Farage, who only in mid-December met Musk in the glitzy surroundings of Mar-a-Lago to talk money, amid reports he was considering a $100m donation to Reform.

Then bam! – after Farage repeatedly hailed Musk as a “hero” who made Reform “look cool” and was looking forward to a chat at Trump’s inauguration – the tables have turned rather dramatically.

Musk tweeted that Farage “doesn’t have what it takes” to lead the party and that Reform needs a new leader.

His change of heart comes after Musk has spent days intensively tweeting about grooming gangs in the UK, and his support for jailed far right activist Tommy Robinson, who has seized on this issue.

Farage, who has tried to distance himself from Robinson for most of his career, thinks this is the reason for the fall out, responding that he was surprised but added: “My view remains that Tommy Robinson is not right for Reform and I never sell out my principles.”

Last week, Musk posted a series of tweets calling for Robinson – real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon – to be released from prison, where he is serving an 18-month sentence for contempt of court for repeating false allegations against a Syrian refugee.

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What does this spat mean for Reform?

In the short-term, Reform would hardly have wanted an unexpected falling out just as they are trumpeting rising membership figures and Farage is poised to meet him in Washington.

But Farage sees Robinson as toxic for his brand, and a distraction from his mission of building a campaign machine to fight the next UK general election – even if he loses powerful friends.

The prospect of a donation from Musk – who has donated huge sums to Donald Trump’s campaign, would have been an enticing one, but there were already significant legal questions around it, under UK election rules.

Farage’s friendship with Trump, going back to his first term as president, also does not seem to have been affected, so a hotline to the White House is still possible.

What does it mean for Starmer and Labour?

It’s unclear what Trump thinks about Musk’s recent obsession with British politics altogether – as he rails against Keir Starmer and other US allies hour by hour, and whether this online trolling will be tolerated after he takes up his job in the White House.

This is a question that Labour officials are eagerly awaiting the answer to, although there may be some relief that the criticism is now being turned on Farage.

Musk has – in the last day or two alone – made a series of incendiary and unfounded accusations against Starmer, claiming he was “complicit in the rape of Britain”, that he is “guilty of terrible crimes” and questioning whether he, as director of public prosecutions, “allowed rape gangs to exploit young girls without facing justice?”

Wes Streeting, the health secretary, doing interviews today, said Musk’s criticism was “completely ill-judged and ill-founded” and that Starmer had done a huge amount to support victims and achieve prosecutions in grooming cases. But largely, the government are trying to ignore the noise.

Kemi Badenoch was accused of dancing to Musk’s tune by calling for a national inquiry into grooming gangs – the Conservatives having rejected one when in government just two years ago.

An unelected US-based billionaire is now setting a cat among the pigeons for all parties in Britain – and throwing issues into the limelight which none will find easy to ignore.