Responding to an article in the Sunday Times (08 December 2024), in which Scottish Health Secretary, Neil Gray, discussed offering NHS staff the opportunity to work evenings and weekends to reduce waiting times for planned surgeries, RCSEd’s President, Professor Rowan Parks, said:
“Various health boards have previously run waiting list initiatives, where outpatient clinic appointments and theatre slots have been available on evenings and weekends, in a bid to reduce the surgical backlog.
While this can be an effective way of enabling higher volumes of patients to be treated, it is important to note that it's a relatively short-term fix, which does not deal with underlying issues such as workforce and capacity shortages across the NHS.
It's also important that staff are properly incentivised and rewarded for working additional hours, staff wellbeing is protected, and normal work plans are not compromised.”
Plans to upgrade under-used areas in existing hospitals to create extra capacity was also discussed in the article, to which Professor Parks responded:
“As a Royal Surgical College, we are supportive of transforming underutilised areas within the existing NHS estate to create additional capacity, if the budget is there to do so.
The key is that the staff and workload are kept distinct from the ongoing day-to-day activity, which does not necessarily require brand new buildings. It is, however, crucial that these new areas are fully equipped and have the requisite capacity and staff.”