Covid-19: Elective surgery hubs could be set up in the East

The NHS could set up elective surgery hubs in the East of England to help patients whose operations have been delayed due to Covid-19.

The number of people facing year-long waits for routine treatments is more than 100 times higher than it was before the pandemic.

Work on a regional "safety net service" was under way, the NHS said.

The chief executive of Colchester and Ipswich hospitals, Nick Hulme, said the situation was "very serious".

He said "we can't pretend we are not going to have a significant number of patients" who have been waiting for elective treatments.

Mr Hulme told a meeting of Essex's Health and Wellbeing Board the most seriously ill patients were still having their operations and private providers were helping with cancer treatment.

At the end of December, Essex declared a major incident as levels of coronavirus cases peaked in parts of the county.

The case rates in Essex have been dropping since the beginning of the third lockdown, but the county still has a high number of patients with Covid-19.

In the week up to 17 January, Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust admitted 706 coronavirus patients across its three hospitals - Basildon, Broomfield in Chelmsford and Southend.

While the East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust had 347 new coronavirus patients in its two hospitals - Ipswich and Colchester.

Simon Wood, NHS commissioning board director, said moving routine treatment patients around the region was being considered, as well as setting up the elective surgery centres.

Essex will also have four new vaccination centres open next week, in addition to the two already open, the meeting heard.

Nigel Leonard, strategy director at the Essex Partnership University Trust, which is overseeing the vaccine roll-out in Essex, said the county was "on schedule" to vaccinate the top four priority groups by mid-February.

But the leader of Braintree District Council said he was "furious" about the vaccine roll out in the north Essex borough.

Councillor Graham Butland said elderly people in his borough have been offered vaccinations 16 miles or further from where they live.

Mr Leonard said work was under way to find a suitable location for a mass vaccination site in the Braintree area.

Find BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email [email protected]