Background – children and young people’s elective recovery
The Delivery Plan for Tackling the COVID-19 Backlog of Elective Care referenced the impact that long waits for planned care can have on the development of children and young people (CYP) and their ability to access education and lead full and active lives. Local systems and providers have made huge efforts to restore elective services. However, the pace of recovery for CYP has not kept up with the level of recovery of adult elective care.
CYP Elective Recovery Campaign
To help address this unwarranted variation, NHS England is launching a national drive to accelerate CYP recovery, with a national campaign running from mid-June to the end of July 2023. The aim of the campaign is to:
- Share positive practice examples and local initiatives that have been successful in addressing some of the challenges faced in recovering CYP elective capacity
- Ensure that CYP are a key part and focus of Trusts’, systems’ and regions’ wider elective recovery plans, and that targeted actions are put in place to tackle CYP elective waits
- Increase CYP elective activity during the campaign and in the following months to address any local variation between CYP and adult elective recovery.
Roundtable purpose
As part of the campaign, this virtual roundtable will bring together national and local leads, with a specific focus on maximising theatre utilisation to increase elective activity for CYP. Tailored data packs will be shared with organisations signing up to the campaign to help identify key challenges in relation to CYP recovery.
The webinar will include:
- Presentations from national leads, including the President of the British Association of Day Surgery
- Examples of positive practice, including use of day surgery units, paediatric elective super days, paediatric pre-operative assessment
- Focus on priority actions to tackle waiting lists for CYP