Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to reduce waiting times for elective surgeries in Hitchin constituency.

Cutting waiting lists is a key priority for the Government, and we have a mandate for our first step in achieving this, by providing an extra 40,000 operations, scans, and appointments each week, which includes greater clinical availability during evenings and weekends.

Dedicated and protected surgical hubs can help reduce waiting times by focusing on high volume low complexity surgeries, as recommended by the Royal College of Surgeons of England, transforming the way the National Health Service provides elective care. There is one surgical hub within the East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust, the Lister Hospital Treatment Centre Elective Surgical Hub. This ring-fenced hub opened in July 2005 and consists of five theatres focusing on multiple specialties, including trauma and orthopaedics, spinal, ophthalmology, ear, nose and throat, gynaecology, urology, and general surgery. Patients from the Hitchin constituency can be referred to this surgical hub for elective surgeries.