ON Sunday, October 9 a mobile operating theatre will be delivered to Wharfedale Hospital to help tackle the backlog in planned operations due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The mobile theatre will create additional operating theatre capacity away from Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust’s main acute hospital sites to increase the number of patients that can be treated each week.

The company delivering the mobile theatre – which will provide additional short-term theatre capacity – will be met by a police escort on the A660 Otley Road between 7.30-8am for a 15 minute drive to Otley town centre. This will be followed by 15 to 30 minutes negotiating the s-bend through the town centre. All being well, arrival at the hospital should be between 8.30-9am.

Disruption to people getting into the hospital car park – for example if they need to access the Minor Injury Unit – will be limited to a matter of minutes.

Once the mobile theatre is on the hospital site, it will take a few hours to unload, set up the support blocks, and get the positioning and level correct. After this the sides are expanded, and the Vanguard Theatre starts to take shape. The theatre will then be kitted out and is planned to come into use by the end of the year.

Separate to the mobile theatre, there is a proposed £10m investment in a permanent Elective Care Hub which will be within the existing footprint of Wharfedale Hospital, and the business case includes two new theatres, a recovery area, admissions and discharge area alongside making an existing ward operational overnight. The aim is for this work to be completed in 2024.

The Hub will provide operations including general surgery, minor cancers, urology and benign gynaecology. As part of the development there will be changes with the day unit and phlebotomy services moving into refurbished areas and a dedicated hysteroscopy treatment suite. Overall, the clinical footprint of the area will increase.

Rob Armstrong, Associate Director of Operations at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, said: “This is a very exciting development in our efforts to develop long-term services at Wharfedale Hospital, and continue to reduce our waiting lists for patients waiting for planned operations. Having a dedicated Elective Care Hub away from our major hospital sites means we will have capacity which we can confidently use all-year-round for planned surgery.

“We appreciate that the delivery of the mobile theatre will cause some very short-term disruption through town, but please understand that we are aiming to keep this to an absolute minimum. Thank you to everyone for your understanding.”