Scarlett McNally: Surgical hubs need to be ringfenced within hospitals to prevent patients being left behind

Abstract

The new plan to improve NHS elective care includes creating and expanding surgical hubs.1 As a surgeon, I feel conflicted. It’s positive if patients with treatable conditions can move forward from the waiting list. But we need to do this with great care to avoid negatively affecting the rest of the NHS, especially for patients deemed ineligible or due to the diversion of staff, training capacity, and funding from existing NHS sites.2 We already have over 100 surgical hubs, some delivering 11-20% more efficiency.3 Hubs tend to take patients with few other conditions and relatively low operative risk, whereas patients with more underlying medical conditions and higher risk must wait for a site with medical back-up for their operation. It’s important to consider that half of the patients having procedures are over 604— of whom 63% have multiple comorbidities5 and …