Super surgery days and newly accredited surgical hubs are just two of the schemes that are helping to drive down the NHS backlog for elective care in the North West.

Monthly regional performance data shows that the overall waiting list in the North West fell by more than 17,500 in just one month – from 1.19 million in October to 1.17 million in November.

Thanks to the huge efforts of NHS staff in the region, more than 229,000 treatments were delivered in November, the highest regional monthly activity on record.

Dr Michael Gregory, Regional Medical Director for NHS England – North West said: “It’s fantastic to see just how hard NHS staff in the North West are working to provide this huge volume of treatment, with more people treated in the region in November than ever before.

“Even with winter pressures, high numbers of Covid and flu cases, and strike action, tackling the waiting lists has remained one of our most important priorities.

“There is still a long way to go, but numbers like this show we are moving in the right direction to deliver on our post-pandemic recovery plans.”

Trusts across the region are going the extra mile to get patients into elective surgery faster, including at the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital, where theatre teams held ‘super surgery’ days – performing 81 surgeries in just two days.

The procedures performed ranged across four specialities; paediatric surgery, urology, plastics and ears, nose and throat, optimising day cases and walk-in-walk-out capacity.

Elective surgical hubs have been an essential part of the recovery plan in the North West, by increasing surgical capacity and offering thousands more patients quicker access to some of the more common procedures.

These hubs focus mainly on providing ‘high volume, low complexity’ surgery, bringing together skills and expertise of a range of staff under one roof.

As the hubs are separated from emergency services, surgical beds are kept free for patients waiting for planned operations, reducing the risk of short-notice cancellations due to other emergency admissions taking priority.

Five surgical hubs in the North West have been awarded accreditation by NHS England’s Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) programme, which ensures the highest standards in clinical and operational practice. These include:

• Chorley and South Ribble Elective Hub.
• Cheshire and Merseyside Surgical Centre.
• Rochdale Infirmary Elective Hub.
• Wrightington Hospital Elective Hub.
• Trafford Hospital Elective hub.

And there is more to come. Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS FT received £14 million of funding to create a new state-of-the-art, surgical day centre. Only this week, the steel frames have been constructed, with the project expected to be completed by early Summer 2024.

Thanks to creating elective capacity in the North West system, the number of people waiting over a year for treatment fell to 71,859 – the lowest it has been since May 2022. And the number of people waiting 65 weeks is also down 53% from a peak of 42,666 in June 2021 to 20,211.

Not only was it a record month for treatment, but NHS staff also delivered a record number of diagnostics in the North West in November, with more than 316,889 patients receiving vital tests or checks for worrying symptoms – up 10% on the same month pre-pandemic.