Proposed new elective hub in St Albans to support elective recovery for our area

Work is being carried out on a proposed new surgical hub to help reduce waiting lists across the Hertfordshire and west Essex region.

The preferred location for the hub is in St Albans, and will carry out procedures for high volume, low complexity procedures for ENT, orthopaedics and ophthalmology – across PAHT, East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust and West Hertfordshire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. Patients would be offered the choice to go to St Albans for their procedure, or to stay at their home hospital. Planning permission has been submitted, and NHS England will confirm by August whether we have been awarded the funding for the surgical hub. If so, the Hub would aim to open in spring 2024.

Work is continuing while we await final decisions, including on how the Hub would work clinically and operationally, and how to support patients with issues like travelling to St Albans.

If you work in the specialties mentioned above, your senior team will have had a conversation with you about what this means and how you can be involved, including where to direct any questions.

In the meantime, you can find out more on AlexNet – including your questions answered, PAHT contacts and timescales >