Operating theatres burning through cash by sitting empty until a bed is available for patients, top surgeon warns

OPERATING theatres are burning through cash by sitting empty until a bed is available for a patient, a top surgeon warns.

Lord Ara Darzi said staff “scrubbed ready” at 8am could still be waiting “until about midday” at the estimated £1,200-an-hour facilities.

The peer told the Commons Health Select Committee: “It’s expensive, it has about six or seven people working there, and it’s vacant.”

Across England more than 12,000 beds at a time – approximately one in 10 – are blocked by patients who are well enough to go home but have not yet been discharged.

Meanwhile waiting lists have risen to record levels, with 6.3million patients waiting for a combined 7.6m procedures.

Lord Darzi said the back-up also forces people to wait longer in A&E.

He said a lack of physical space is one of the reasons health service productivity has “crashed”.

The surgeon added: “When I was appointed in general cancer surgery, there would have been about five or six of us.

“That’s doubled now but we still have the same number of operating theatres.”

• THOUSANDS of patients die each year as a result of short-staffing and high turnover of doctors and nurses in hospitals, a study suggests.

Experts at the University of Surrey said staff changes and the use of agency workers to plug rota gaps are “detrimental for patient care”.