ReviewApplied health economics and health policy2025
The Cost Effectiveness of Elective Surgical Procedures with Longer NHS Waiting Lists: A Targeted Review.
Review in Applied health economics and health policy, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Fail to Compare, Prepare to Fail: Comparator Omission in NICE Single Technology Appraisals.PharmacoEconomics · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesOur aim was to review the evidence for the cost effectiveness of elective surgeries with long waiting lists within the NHS in England. This is to inform understanding of national spending priorities in the context of significant demand for elective surgeries and to inform the debate on appropriate cost-effectiveness thresholds across healthcare decision making.
methodsWe conducted a targeted literature review to identify published cost-effectiveness analyses for nine elective procedures with long waiting lists in the NHS, selected based on previous reviews. These were percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG), hysterectomy, cholecystectomy, knee replacement, groin hernia repair, hip replacement, prostatectomy, and cataract surgery. We made comparisons adjusted for currency and price year (2024).
resultsWe identified 21 evaluations; in these, the cost effectiveness of surgeries was compared with no surgery (n = 9), medical management (n = 5), and between early and delayed surgery (n = 10). The evaluations reported that almost all procedures would be considered cost effective yielding incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs) below £20,000 per quality-adjusted life-year gained. Cholecystectomy, prostatectomy, hip and knee replacement surgeries were associated with ICERs of between £5,000 and £10,000.
conclusionsThese findings offer insights for policymakers on optimising finite healthcare resources, particularly post-COVID-19, with surgical waiting lists a priority for the NHS. Prioritising these elective procedures is likely to be a highly cost-effective use of NHS resources. Allocation of investment to areas that are more cost effective than others is likely to increase the efficiency of the NHS, resulting in a net health gain compared with the reimbursement of less cost-effective interventions.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.