South West London CCG Annual Report and Accounts 2020/21

planned surgical procedures we would have done at the same time the previous year. Wherever appropriate, procedures are performed as day case surgery. St George’s Hospital has been on stand-by to open additional intensive care unit beds for extremely sick patients with Covid-19. To help them do this, Croydon, Kingston, St Helier and Epsom hospitals stepped-up specialty planned surgery. St George’s has continued to carry out a high proportion of complex planned surgery on site, and hundreds of patients under their care have successfully had their treatment at neighbouring Croydon and Kingston Hospitals. As part of national plans, dedicated surgical hubs for non-urgent operations have been set up to see more patients quickly and helping to reduce waiting lists: • Orthopaedics - South West London Elective Orthopaedic Centre (SWLEOC), has expanded capacity to include an additional theatre seeing, allowing them to treat an additional 125 patients a month. • Ophthalmology - Moorfields, based at St George’s Hospital and Epsom and St Helier Trust, have increased the number of cataract operations to around 800 operations each month. All four Hospitals continue to offer cataract surgery. • Urology - In October 2020 Epsom Hospital became a pilot surgical hub for urology surgery for Epsom, St Helier and St George’s patients. • General surgery - Croydon and Kingston Hospitals are supporting those patients waiting longer for care at St George’s Hospital. • Gynaecology - Croydon Hospital is the hub for Gynaecology, with more than 100 patients from Epsom and St Helier being offered the option of having their surgery at Croydon Hospital rather than waiting longer for treatment closer to home. • Ear, nose and throat - Patients who have waited longer than a year for an appointment at St George’s have been offered an appointment at Kingston Hospital. Supporting discharge During the second wave, the main challenge to patient flow through South West London hospitals has been the availability of appropriate beds. As the number of Covid-19 patients being admitted increased, the infection prevention and distancing measures restricted bed availability. We also saw an increase in the number of patients being readmitted and more patients having to stay in hospital for more than 14 days in both intensive care and on general wards. This significantly impacted on patient flow. We responded to these challenges by commissioning additional high intensity rehabilitation beds and increased capacity for continuing healthcare assessments and redirected teams to support discharge. 32 | NHS South West London Clinical Commissioning Group