NHS recovery plan

Additional Inpatient and Day case Activity

Central to our objectives of tackling the Covid-19 related treatment backlogs, and putting the NHS on a sustainable path for the future, is the creation a network of National Treatment Centres (NTCs) for planned elective procedures and diagnostic care. This builds on the model pioneered by the Golden Jubilee, Scotland's original National Treatment Centre, which will help ensure that more planned care is less vulnerable to disruption from surges in unplanned care.

The NTC Programme is a huge investment in frontline planned care infrastructure and over the next five years it will provide the single biggest increase in planned care capacity ever created in the NHS. We have already committed to an investment of £330 million in the NTC programme, with the first expansion of the Golden Jubilee in November 2020. Through this recovery plan we will increase NTC investment to more than £400 million to support the establishment of two further centres in Ayrshire and Cumbernauld.

In addition to the Golden Jubilee the new network will include the 6 centres already in development, and the two additional centres in Ayrshire and Cumbernauld. We are also working on the replacement of the Edinburgh Eye Pavilion, which will ultimately see a national network of 10 specialist centres delivering a wide range of elective and diagnostic care across the country.

The phased opening of the NTCs is being accelerated to support NHS recovery and help the increase in demand that is anticipated to arise from demographic changes. The graph below shows the expected year on year increase in capacity. By 2026 the network is planned to deliver at least 40,000 additional elective surgeries and procedures per year. From 2026 onwards, this will increase to 50,000 per year. In particular, the NTCs will significantly increase capacity for diagnostic procedures such as CT and MRI scans, outpatient appointments, day surgery and short-stay theatre procedures in specialties such as orthopaedics, ophthalmology and general surgery. To deliver this, by 2026, we will recruit at least an additional 1,500 staff to work in the NTCs. The full network of NTCs will be completed and operational by the end of this Parliament.In addition to this new capacity we expect around 15,500 additional procedures to be delivered in existing NHS Board facilities in each year of this plan.