Wharfedale Hospital’s surgical hub has been successfully accredited for delivering high standards in clinical and operational practice as part of a national assessment scheme.
The scheme, run by NHS England’s Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) programme in collaboration with the Royal College of Surgeons of England, assesses surgical hubs against a framework of standards to help hubs deliver faster access to some of the most common surgical procedures. It also seeks to assure patients about the high standards of clinical care.
The £12million Wharfedale Hospital hub opened in autumn 2024 and is run in partnership between Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust and Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust. It provides operations including general surgery, minor cancers, urology and benign gynaecology. As part of the opening the existing day unit and phlebotomy services moved into refurbished areas and a dedicated hysteroscopy treatment suite was set up.
The hub brings together the skills and expertise of staff under one roof, with protected facilities and theatres, helping to deliver shorter waits for surgery. Because they are separated from emergency services, surgical beds can be kept free for patients waiting for planned operations, reducing the risk of short-notice cancellations.
Wharfedale Hospital’s surgical hub has been accredited in recognition that it is working to a defined set of clinical and operational standards on:
- The patient pathway
- Staff and training
- Clinical governance and outcomes
- Facilities and ring-fencing
- Utilisation and productivity
Iain MacBrairdy, Director of Operations at Leeds Teaching Hospitals, said: “We are delighted that the elective surgical services at Wharfedale Hospital have been recognised for the high standard and quality of care our teams deliver and our patients experience.
“The accreditation of Wharfedale Hospital as an Elective Hub also recognises that significant work that both Leeds Teaching Hospitals and Harrogate & District NHS Foundation Trust have been doing to make the very best use of the recently expanded operating theatres to help reduce waiting times for surgery in our region. This work continues and we are excited by our plans for the future.”
Wharfedale Hospital is one of 63 hubs to date that have been accredited. There are 123 hub sites currently in operation in England with a further nine hubs planned to open by the end of 2026. The accreditation scheme has been running since March 2023 with quarterly cohorts to accredit all hubs by the end of 2026. While it is not mandatory for trusts to seek accreditation, the long-term goal is for every elective hub to be accredited.
Professor Tim Briggs, GIRFT programme lead and NHS England’s National Director for Clinical Improvement and Elective Recovery, said: “We have been impressed with the professionalism and enthusiasm of the hub teams who are delivering outstanding care.
“All of the sites we accredited are focused on delivering safe and high-quality care, and an excellent patient experience. GIRFT’s focus is on developing surgical hubs with the aim of improving patient flow so that patients have shorter waits for surgery and, for some procedures, will be more likely to be able to go home on the same day.”
ENDS
Background notes on GIRFT and elective surgical hubs:
The accreditation scheme is a collaboration with the Royal College of Surgeons of England and is also supported by the Royal College of Anaesthetists.
GIRFT is a national NHS England programme which gathers and collates clinical data. It helps trusts and health systems to benchmark and review their performance across a range of metrics and different specialty procedures.
As part of this, GIRFT is supporting trusts and systems to ring-fence elective capacity and create elective hub facilities to carry out low and medium complexity procedures at scale within defined standards. These hub sites will help increase elective activity with patient flows into the hubs from a number of different trusts or trust sites within a system.
A priority area is to drive improvement in six high-volume but low complexity surgical specialties:
1. Ophthalmology
2. General surgery
3. Trauma and orthopaedics (including spinal surgery)
4. Gynaecology
5. ENT
6. Urology
Some hubs were set up during the COVID-19 pandemic in order to provide protected facilities for planned surgical care and have now evolved into permanent facilities supporting the recovery of elective services.