The £9.4m North West London Elective Orthopaedic Centre based at Central Middlesex Hospital has been officially opened.

Providing around 4,000 orthopaedic procedures a year, the centre will help reduce a waiting list of more than 16,000 patients that has built up since the pandemic.

The centre brings together most routine bone and joint procedures, such as knee and hip replacements, in north west London.

This approach has been shown to improve quality and efficiency, enabling better care for more patients. It also frees up surgical capacity in other hospitals, such as Charing Cross Hospital, to focus on more-complex procedures where patients need more-specialist care.

Leading the official opening was former secondary school teacher, David Wootton, who was the first patient to be treated at the centre.

The 72-year-old underwent a partial knee replacement in the morning and was on his way home to Acton later the same day.

The centre is one of the first major developments of the North West London Acute Provider Collaborative, a partnership of the four acute NHS trusts in the sector: Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, The Hillingdon Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, and London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust.

Matt Bartlett, orthopaedic surgeon and medical director of the centre, which is managed by London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust, said: “A similar model in south London has proved very successful.

“It is all about providing a faster, more equitable service.

“Orthopaedic procedures involving bones and joints make up more than a quarter of all NHS operations and we are working hard to reduce waiting lists.”

Patients’ pre-operative and post-operative care remains in their local hospitals, with their surgeons moving with them to carry out their procedures in the specialist centre.

Ian Sinha, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, said: “We’re already finding that our new approach works really well for patients and for our clinical teams – it’s enabling greater collaboration and learning which will help us improve the quality of our care as well as reduce waiting lists.”