The Regional Day Procedure Centre at Lagan Valley Hospital points the way to how health reform can deliver for patients in Northern Ireland.
The facility provides routine surgical procedures for patients from across different Health Trust areas.
Opened in October 2020, it is the first Regional Day Procedure Centre to be established in Northern Ireland. A second Centre has subsequently been opened at Omagh Hospital.
For two years of the pandemic, the Centre provided a green pathway to keep surgery going despite COVID and to minimise risks to patients and staff. During this time the Centre provided vital surgery to over 2,000 priority patients.
In October 2022, the Day Procedure Centre reverted to its original purpose – to provide capacity for non-urgent routine surgical procedures. In that month 303 patients were operated on across urology, general surgery and plastics.
The work has been so effective that the Day Procedure Centre has had huge successes in delivering inguinal hernia repairs. This means no patients in the Trust suitable for this kind of day procedure is waiting longer than four weeks, and the Centre is on track to do the same for patients from other parts of NI, starting with neighbouring Belfast HSC Trust.
The Day Procedure Centre is part of the wider reform of elective care – planned care - in line with the Elective Care Framework, published in June 2021. This will involve a network of specialised elective care centres.
Department of Health Permanent Secretary Peter May said: “The achievements in the Regional Day Procedure Centre at Lagan Valley Hospital are extraordinary. The commitment and hard work of the excellent staff at the Centre have allowed the health service to treat patients who would otherwise have been waiting a long time. The work is also evidence that the elective care centre model works, and that it provides a way for us to reduce our unacceptably long waiting lists.”
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