Surgeons say waiting times could be cut with specialist hubs

Surgeons are asking for specialist hubs in England to help confront a “colossal backlog” of routine and non-urgent operations due to Covid-19.

The Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) are asking for a network of hospital sites focused on routine surgery, such as knee and hip replacement.

In March, around five million patients were waiting for surgery, the highest number since records began, with over 436,000 waiting for longer than a year compared with only 1,600 before the pandemic.

President of the RCS, Professor Neil Mortenson, said the pandemic has had a devastating impact on surgical services and that it must not be allowed to happen again.

He went on to say “Surgery must be available on the NHS all year round, not stop and start.

“If a dangerous new variant of Covid-19 takes hold, or another bad flu arrives in the autumn, we cannot allow surgery to grind to a halt again or waiting lists will become insurmountable.”

A spokesperson from the Department of Health and Social Care said “We have backed the NHS at every point in the pandemic, safeguarding urgent treatment such as cancer and emergency care, while protecting the NHS to ensure it was not overwhelmed.”

He said the government was making available “an extra £7bn for health and care services” this year and a further £1bn to tackle backlogs.

“We face an unprecedented challenge and will continue to work closely with the NHS to accelerate the recovery of services so everyone gets the care they need, including £160m to support hospitals to find innovative ways to carry out even more operations and cut waiting lists.”

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Posted by Tony May, Partner/head of Clinical Negligence Department, Chadwick Lawrence LLP (tonymay@chadlaw.co.uk ), medical negligence lawyers and clinical negligence solicitors in Huddersfield, Leeds, Wakefield and Halifax, West Yorkshire.

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