To help tackle the backlog of patients waiting for surgery due to delays caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, we held a special ‘Bones R Us’ week, from Monday 21 to Friday 25 June.

This was a focused effort across our Trauma and Orthopaedics team to get a high number of procedures carried out in just five days – part of how we are recovering our services and reducing our waiting lists.

Krishna Vemulapalli, our Clinical Lead for Orthopaedics, said: “This achievement is dedicated to all the staff who worked so closely together to make this happen; our admin and pre-admin teams, theatre staff, surgeons and management colleagues.

“This is a great example of effective teamwork delivering patient-centred care. We also implemented lessons learned in the first Bones week last October. A simple change such as adding an additional porter to move patients; combined with holding our team huddle across both operating theatres, has helped reduce wasted time between operations.”

We’ll be holding a further ‘Bones R Us’ week next month, focusing on patients needing knee and hip replacements.

Ben Morrin, our Deputy Chief Executive, said: “I’m delighted that our Bones R Us week went so well and that 60 additional patients had their operations. This focused on patients needing surgery to their upper limbs, feet and ankles and completing so many of these procedures safely in one week takes a lot of work, so well done to everyone involved in achieving this.

“As with the rest of the NHS, the pandemic has seen more of our patients waiting longer than we’d like to get the care they need. We’re working extremely hard to reduce this, with focused efforts like this playing a huge role. We’re holding these focused clinics across our departments, benefitting more and more patients, and we’re looking forward to holding another Bones R Us week in July.”