... and what about your op – or an appointment at the GP?

TENS of thousands of routine operations could be cancelled to take the pressure off hospitals battling coronavirus. Some hospitals are already cancelling outpatient appointments such as physiotherapy sessions, others are carrying out consultations by phone or video call, wherever possible.

Hip replacements, hernia repairs and cataract surgery are among the procedures expected to be put on hold south of the Border — with details due later this week.

‘If you stopped doing elective surgery, you could convert theatres, resuscitation rooms and recovery areas into places where you could provide intensive care,’ Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents hospital trusts, told the BBC’s Newsnight.

The Royal College of Surgeons, which is working with the Government to finalise the plans, says that a blanket ban on elective, or planned, operations, is unlikely. Instead, individual hospital trusts will decide which operations to cancel based on the resources available to them. The urgency of the procedure will also be taken into account, with some heart and brain surgery, for instance, being vital despite being classed as ‘routine’.

The situation is broadly the same in Scotland. NHS boards have already begun cancelling routine procedures, as have those in Wales. However, health chiefs have stressed that cancer therapy, kidney dialysis and other urgent treatments will continue.

The Royal College of Surgeons is urging those awaiting routine operations to wait until the hospital contacts them.

GP appointments are also being hit, with all practices told to carry out consultations by phone and video call ‘wherever clinically and practically possible’. Some surgeries have gone further, by telling patients not to visit them ‘at any time’. Your GP surgery will be in touch with you if you have an appointment which is cancelled.