£160 million ‘accelerator sites’ to tackle waiting lists

NHS England has announced a £160 million initiative to tackle waiting lists and develop a blueprint for elective recovery.

Indicators suggest operations and other elective activity were already at four fifths of pre-pandemic levels in April, well ahead of the 70 per cent threshold set out in official guidance. This complements early reports which suggest that the health service is recovering faster after the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic.

NHS England is now seeking to accelerate the recovery by trialling new ways of working in a dozen areas and five specialist children’s hospitals. As such, the ‘elective accelerators’ will each receive a share of £160 million along with additional support to implement and evaluate innovative ways to increase the number of elective operations they deliver.

Over the next three months tens of thousands of patients in those areas are set to benefit from initiatives that include a high-volume cataract service, one stop testing facilities, greater access to specialist advice for GPs and pop-up clinics so patients can be seen and discharged closer to home.

Virtual wards and home assessments, 3D eye scanners, at-home antibiotic kits, ‘pre-hab’ for patients about to undergo surgery, AI in GP surgeries and ‘Super Saturday’ clinics – where multi-disciplinary teams come together at the weekend to offer more specialist appointments – will also be trialled.

The aim is to exceed the same number of tests and treatments as they did before the pandemic and develop a blueprint for elective recovery to enable hospitals to go further and faster.

Amanda Pritchard, NHS Chief Operating Officer, said: “Treating around 400,000 Covid patients over the past year has inevitably had a knock-on effect on non-urgent care, but our incredible staff still managed to perform more than two million operations and other treatments in the first two months of this year when the hospitals were at their busiest with Covid patients.

“With Covid cases in hospitals now significantly reducing thanks to the extraordinary success of the NHS vaccination programme, our focus is now on rapidly recovering routine services. Early figures show local teams are already well ahead of schedule, but we want to go further, faster which is why we are investing £160 million to find new ways to tackle waiting lists.

“The additional support announced today will help us create a blueprint for continuing that progress over summer and beyond, in a way that doesn’t heap extra pressure on staff, so that as many people as possible benefit from the world-class care the NHS provides.”