Operating theatres: opportunities to reduce waiting lists
NHS Improvement 4 February 2019
About the findings:
Hospitals could carry out over 291,000 more routine operations, like hip replacements and cataract surgeries, a year by improving how they schedule their surgical lists.
NHS Improvement 4 February 2019
- This report looks at unwarranted variation in theatre productivity and ways to improve how care is delivered in England
- The work, by Deloitte, found that hospitals could carry out over 291,000 more routine operations, like hip replacements and cataract surgeries, a year by improving how they schedule their surgical lists.
About the findings:
Hospitals could carry out over 291,000 more routine operations, like hip replacements and cataract surgeries, a year by improving how they schedule their surgical lists.
- Data submitted by 92 trusts for the year January to December 2017 demonstrated variation in theatre productivity between different trusts and different specialties. Specific findings included:
- A third of operating lists started 30 minutes or more late and 38% finished 30 minutes or more early. More than 111,000 finished at least 60 minutes early. Day lists comprising three four-hour sessions were particularly likely to finish early.
- Theatre time lost to late starts, early finishes and delays between operations could potentially have been used by the 92 trusts to do up to 291,327 more operations (a 16.8% increase), had they been able to address their main causes.
- For the eight highest volume surgical specialties reviewed, this would have meant around:
- 30,000 more ear, nose and throat operations
- 42,000 more general surgery operations
- 32,000 more gynaecology operations
- 41,000 more ophthalmology operations
- 27,000 more oral and maxillofacial surgery operations
- 19,000 more plastic surgery operations
- 57,000 more orthopaedic operations
- 44,000 more urology operations
