Covid: Greater Manchester elective surgery to restart, mayor says

Surgery was cancelled in the wake of a Covid surge caused by the Omicron variant

Non-urgent surgery and hospital appointments will restart in Greater Manchester this week, the region's mayor has said.

Hospitals in the area cancelled all non-urgent activity in November due to a rising Covid-19 infection rate.

Andy Burnham said elective activity would restart "with day cases" in the next few days and "progressively increase" after that.

However, he said services in the region remained under "considerable pressure".

The Local Democracy Reporting Service said the Labour mayor made the announcement as he updated the region on the local coronavirus response.

'Good news'

He said the pause had been "kept under regular review" and as the region's hospitals "make further progress on the number of people... who can be discharged, we'll be able to progressively increase the level of activity and get back to what might resemble a normal level of service".

"I know [the news] will be well received by patients who feel frustrated by the current situation and have been worried," he said.

"Patients who have had operations or procedures cancelled should just wait to hear from the NHS, but the good news is that it is starting again.

"There is still considerable pressure on the system, so people will have to bear with our NHS colleagues."

The pause on elective activity did not affect cancer or urgent care including cardiac surgery, vascular surgery and transplantation.