Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (WWL) is delighted to announce that, following the successful addition of Theatre 11 at Wrightington Hospital, another brand-new facility will shortly be receiving patients.
Theatre 11 was opened in October 2024 and Theatre 12 is to be handed over this month with both developments leading to improved productivity and an increase of WWL’s capacity to reduce waiting lists for patients awaiting orthopaedic surgery.
The new theatres and supporting recovery areas further reinforce Wrightington Hospital’s Surgical Hub status, establishing WWL as the North West (NW) Centre for Orthopaedic excellence, due to the Trust’s technical expertise and resources. By working closely with Trusts across Greater Manchester (GM) to offer mutual aid for patients who have long waits in other organisations, WWL is now also able to treat patients across GM and Lancashire, with more than 40% of patient activity coming from these areas of the North West.
Mary Fleming, Chief Executive at WWL, said: “I am delighted that we can now offer more patients the excellent orthopaedic services that Wrightington Hospital is renowned for. These fantastic new theatres will improve our productivity and will enable us to carry out more procedures, tackling waiting lists, both across the Borough and wider Greater Manchester system, and will help patients to get the care they need and back to living fuller lives, faster.”
Surgical Hub sites are intended to deliver a high-volume of low-complexity procedures which will be key to tackling long waiting lists. Theatres 11 and 12 have been designed specifically to focus on these kinds of procedures, such as soft tissue knee surgery and low complexity joint replacements. The theatres were built using Trust capital funds and £6.1m of funding through NHS England’s Targeted Investment Fund (TIF), a national programme designed to increase NHS elective and diagnostic capacity in response to the rising elective backlogs resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Only four sites in Greater Manchester hold Surgical Hub accreditation, two of which are WWL hospitals – Wrightington Hospital and Leigh Infirmary - and is recognition that the sites work to a defined set of clinical and operational standards. The new theatres are equipped with laminar flow clean air systems which substantially reduces the risk of infection in orthopaedic surgery and can help speed up patient recovery.
Ben Coupe, Orthopaedic Consultant and Divisional Medical Director, stressed the importance of the new theatres and how they will help to tackle waiting lists at Wrightington Hospital. He said: “Theatres 11 and 12, and the associated new recovery facilities, will form dedicated areas to efficiently and safely manage an increased number of day case surgical patients for the foreseeable future. This is fantastic news for our patients and Wrightington Hospital serving as a Surgical Hub for the Greater Manchester area and NW Centre for Orthopaedic excellence.”
The builds represent a significant milestone for Wrightington Hospital as these are the first new theatres to be built on the site since 2015. The impact on staff and patients has been significant, with patients regularly commenting on the experience of being treated in such a modern, bright and clean environment. This will only continue with the further additional new theatre.
Joseph Gallagher, Operating Department Practitioner, Theatre 11 at Wrightington Hospital said: “We have already become so efficient, and the patient feedback has been amazing, which is testament to the hard-working staff who have committed to getting the theatre up and running so smoothly. It is just a great atmosphere to work in, everyone is very eager, I can’t praise everyone highly enough, they go above and beyond.”