ArticleNature communications2025
The impact of elective surgical hubs on elective surgery in acute hospital trusts in England.
Article in Nature communications, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed.
- Article
- Streamlining elective surgical pathways using early digital screening with complexity grading: feasibility study of a co-designed innovation.BMJ health & care informatics · 2026Article
- The Postponement and Cancellations in Elective Care study: a national evaluation of case postponements and cancellations in elective surgical pathways.British journal of anaesthesia · 2026Article
- Impact of delayed elective urological surgery: A prospective observational study.BJUI compass · 2026Article
- Mapping strategies for reducing inequalities in adult elective surgical care in the United Kingdom: a living scoping review.BMC health services research · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Elective surgical hubs at acute hospital trusts in England aim to increase productivity and efficiency in planned (elective) surgeries, reduce cancellations, and improve patient and staff experiences by ring-fencing care and focussing on High-Volume, Low Complexity (HVLC) surgeries. Using patient-level hospital data from April 2018 to December 2022, we evaluated the impact of new hubs (operational from 2019 onwards) and established hubs (operational before 2019) on trust-wide rates of total and HVLC elective surgeries using a generalised synthetic control methodology. Here, we show that during the first year of operation, the average rate of HVLC elective surgery in trusts with new hubs was 21.9% (95% CI 11.7%, 32.2%) higher than expected. After the COVID-19 pandemic, trusts with established hubs demonstrated greater resilience, with 11.2% higher than expected rates of total (1.3% to 21.2%) and HVLC (1.7% to 20.7%) elective surgery and 0.17 days (0.28 to 0.061) shorter than expected inpatient lengths of hospital stay. Our evaluation provides robust evidence to inform future priorities for elective care delivery.
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Registered trials
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