New £9.4m surgery center opens to reduce £16,000 waiting list in north west London

A new multi-million pound surgery center which will carry out around 4,000 orthopedic procedures a year was officially opened in north London last week. The NHS trust said it would help reduce the 16,000-strong waiting list that has built up since the pandemic.

North West London’s £9.4m elective orthopedic center at Park Royal opened last week (May 13) with the aim of reducing patient waiting times in Brent and the surrounding area. The opening was attended by local politicians including Brent MPs Dawn Butler and Barry Gardiner.

The center is designed for routine inpatient orthopedic surgery for the whole of North West London. This will be for high-volume, albeit low-complexity bone and joint procedures, such as knee and hip replacements, performed in three new operating rooms – which will eventually expand to five.

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This approach has been shown to improve quality and efficiency, enabling better care for more patients and freeing up capacity in other hospitals to focus on more complex procedures where patients need specialist care, according to London North-west NHS Trust .

Barry Gardiner MP congratulated the team and believes it will help “reduce the number of canceled operations” for residents. Dawn Butler MP said the new facility would have a “massive impact” on the quality of life for those receiving surgery at the centre.

Brent councilor and chair of the North West London Health Joint Committee, Ketan Sheth, called it “an honour” to be invited to take part in the official opening and claimed he was already hearing positive stories about early proceedings at the centre.

He said: “The Elective Orthopedic Center is a great example of what can be achieved by different parts of the health system working together. We had a situation where there were long waiting lists for orthopedic procedures in our hospitals, and that has increased significantly during the pandemic.”

He added: “By bringing all clinical expertise and resources under one roof – all our hospitals working together for the benefit of patients – we know our residents will be seen faster and waiting times will be reduced.

The center is one of the first major developments of the North West London Acute Provider Collaborative, a partnership of the four acute NHS trusts in the sector: London North West University Healthcare, Imperial College Healthcare, Chelsea and Westminster Hospital and The Hillingdon Hospitals.

The centre’s medical director and an orthopedic surgeon, Matt Bartlett, said: “A similar model in south London has proved very successful. It’s about providing a faster and fairer service. Orthopedic procedures involving bones and joints account for more than a quarter of all NHS operations and we are working hard to reduce waiting lists.”

Pippa Nightingale, CEO of London North West Healthcare, added: “We need to be prepared for the future; if we do nothing, the number of people waiting for orthopedic surgery in North West London would increase by almost a fifth by 2030.

“(The centre) is therefore a game-changer and will particularly benefit older patients and those from more disadvantaged backgrounds, where musculoskeletal disorders are one of the most common long-term health conditions.”

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