Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many non-urgent operations have been cancelled in hospitals in the London Borough of Southwark in each of the last seven years.

NHS England collects the number of elective operations cancelled at the ‘last minute’ for non-clinical reasons on a quarterly basis. It does not collect the total number of cancelled operations, a breakdown of the type of operations that have been cancelled, or the specific reason for the cancellation. On occasion, urgent care demands mean that non-urgent operations may need to be postponed to make sure that people most in need of hospital care receive it. The majority of non–urgent operations that are cancelled are re-booked within 28 days.

The information is shown in the following table.

Number of last minute elective operations cancelled in trusts serving the London Borough of Southwark (and surrounds) in each of the last seven years for non-clinical reasons

Source: Cancelled Elective Operations, NHS England

Note: The main acute trusts that serve Southwark are King’s College NHS Foundation Trust and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust.

The number of cancelled operations has reduced in recent years at King College Hospital, with cancelled operations as a percentage of elective admissions reducing from 1.45 % in Quarter 3 2014/15, to 0.86% in Quarter 3 2016/17 and has been maintained under 1% at Guys and St Thomas’, with 0.7% reported in Quarter 3, 2017/18.