Our surgical hub at King George Hospital, also known as our Covid-protected green zone, has been featured in a report published on Monday 11 July by the Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) – The Case for Surgical Hubs.

We introduced our surgical hub during the pandemic, which had led to the postponement of huge numbers of non-urgent, planned operations. As a ‘hub within our hospital’, it allowed us to separate planned and emergency care, keeping surgical beds free for patients awaiting planned operations, instead of them being used for emergencies as had previously been the case.

Enhanced safety measures also meant we could carry out these procedures safely, including

Covid testing for staff and patients and asking patients to isolate ahead of their operation, which helped reduce cancellations.

This has allowed us to carry out our hugely successful 'Bones weeks', which started in October 2020 and saw 250 patients get the care they needed over seven days. It also helped us reduce the number of patients waiting over two years for treatment from 218 to just three in two months. These remaining patients have chosen to delay for their own reasons.

Our hub is one of the initiatives which has helped bolster the case nationally for separating planned and emergency care, particularly as we move out of the worst of the pandemic and focus on reducing waiting lists which have built up.

The RCS’ President, Professor Neil Mortensen, visited our surgical hub in December 2021 (pictured above) and said he was inspired by the hard work of our staff to tackle the backlog caused by the pandemic.

As well as our version of the surgical hub, which is integrated within our hospital, the report also featured stand-alone hubs, including one by run St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

You can find the full report, in which we are featured on page ten, on the RCS website.

Our Chief Executive, Matthew Trainer, said: “I’m proud of how hard our teams are working to reduce our waiting lists and get our patients the care they need.

“The key in all this has been giving them the confidence to seize new innovations and work in different ways, such as with our surgical hub.”

Read more about how we’re reducing our waiting lists.