New NHS orthopaedic centre to help tackle backlog

The new orthopaedic outpatient facility at the Royal Hampshire County Hospital

A new NHS facility for patients with broken bones and those needing hip and knee replacements has been given the green light.

The orthopaedic outpatients department was granted planning permission by Winchester City Council.

The Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust expects the new hub to be open at the end of May 2025.

The centre will contain two theatres, a 28-bed in-patient ward with associated facilities and mean an extra 2,400 procedures can be carried out each year.

Floorplans of the new orthopaedic outpatient department

Hampshire and Isle of Wight NHS leaders agreed in 2022 that constructing a dedicated “elective hub” was the best approach to address the backlog created by the pandemic.

A Hampshire county council’s health and adult social care officers confirmed NHS England funding of £40 million to build both the Hampshire and Isle of Wight orthopaedic elective hub and the new orthopaedic outpatient facility both on the Royal Hampshire County Hospital site in Winchester.

The unit will be built within the Burrell Wing of the hospital and it will operate six days a week with consultants from University Hospital Southampton and Hampshire Hospitals Foundation Trust operating.

The orthopaedic department will provide a further eight outpatient rooms, a co-located plain film X-ray service with an adjacent treatment room, and four fracture clinic assessment booths with an adjacent two-bay plaster room.