The Day Treatment Centre at the Freeman Hospital has been accredited as an elective surgery hub for adults.
There are currently 107 elective surgical hubs established across the NHS in England, with 40 of those successfully accredited.
The accreditation scheme is run by NHS England’s Getting it Right First Time (GIRFT) in collaboration with the Royal College of Surgeons and assess hubs against a framework of standards relating to:
- Patient pathway
- Staff and training
- Clinical governance and outcomes
- Utilisation and productivity
- Facilities and ring-fencing
The final report says: “It was a privilege to meet such a committed, talented, and enthusiastic team. They shared examples and information on good practice and innovation and were open and transparent during interviews and focus sessions. It is encouraging to meet the teams who are supporting the elective recovery process for this system and to better understand the pressures and daily challenges they face.”
Surgical hubs are part of NHS England’s elective recovery plans to increase surgical capacity and to offer hundreds of thousands more patients quicker access to some of the most common procedures.
Hubs focus mainly on providing ‘high volume low complexity’ surgery and bring together skills and expertise of staff under one roof – reducing waiting times for some of the most common procedures.
Caoimhe Doherty, matron at the Day Treatment Centre said: “We’re delighted to see the centre receive accreditation. It is a testament to the hard work and dedication to all of our staff. We were especially pleased to see the report highlight our staff engagement and cultural support as an area of good practice. A huge thank you to the whole team that helped make this possible.”
The Day Treatment Centre at the Freeman Hospital opened in September 2022 and is purpose built to ensure operations and procedures are delivered efficiently, to improve the experience of patients and maximise the number of people that can be treated.
It has four theatres, dedicated admission and recovery areas, and provides additional capacity for thousands of less complex procedures in specialities such as: musculoskeletal health, urology, general surgery, plastic surgery, neurology, pain and some cardio procedures.
The centre is self-contained, so operating theatres are not affected by emergency patient admissions or pressures linked with winter, so appointments rarely need to be rearranged
Since opening, over 10,369 procedures have been carried out at the centre with the most common operations provided include spinal injections, gallbladder removal, breast operations, fitting stents or pacemakers and bladder procedures.
80-year-old Jeanette Small from Gosforth was referred to the Day Treatment Centre for a left wide local excision with sentinel lymph node biopsy and L TAP flap procedure – which is an effective way of replacing tissue lost due to tumour removal.
She said: “The service at the Day Treatment Centre was beyond excellent – all the staff from reception to discharge have looked after me amazingly. The staff were all so polite, professional and respectful, they put me at ease and reassured me. They also took the time to explain everything to me in a really friendly way – it has been a happy and positive experience.”
