Following completion of the review, 21 recommendations have been made to the Department, each designed to increase activity in the short term with the overall of aim of building a sustainable service for the future. The recommendations describe the need to ring fence resources for elective orthopaedics, and for the creation of an Orthopaedic Elective Surgery Recovery Board to provide oversight to Trusts throughout the rebuild process.
In April of this year, the Department of Health commissioned an independent external review of the elective orthopaedic service of Northern Ireland with the key aim of identifying solutions for the effective recovery of the service, to ensure patients receive much needed orthopaedic surgery as quickly as possible. The review was undertaken by a team from the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital (RNOH), Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) Projects Directorate, and it has been clinically led and co-produced with input from key stakeholders across the Health and Social Care system.
GIRFT Elective Orthopaedics Service Review - Recommendations