RCoA on the Government’s Elective Recovery Plan

The Royal College of Anaesthetists welcomes the plan but urges further specifics on workforce.

Today the Government has set out how it believes it will address the NHS’s waiting list backlog and, in theory, initiate the biggest catchup programme in the health service’s history. Six million people are currently on NHS waiting lists in England.

There is much to be welcomed in the plan, including pledges for greater shared decision making with patients, and to help patients prepare for surgery.

However, the College has long argued that there can be no NHS recovery without addressing workforce shortfalls. Its work has  shown that there is a shortage of 1,400 anaesthetists across the UK, preventing one million operations from happening each year. 

Dr Fiona Donald, President of the RCoA said:

“There is much in this plan to be commended, especially around a commitment to greater shared decision making between patients and clinicians, and in terms of preparing patients ahead of operations.

However, it is vital that the Government give more specifics on its plan to address workforce shortages. The simple truth is that most operations cannot take place without an anaesthetist, including in the proposed surgical hubs, so the current anaesthetic workforce shortage is severely harming the NHS’s efforts to get waiting lists down. The Government needs to set out, transparently and publicly, how it will address this if it truly wants to solve the challenges the NHS is facing.”