A state-of-the-art new specialist surgical centre located just outside of Bath has opened its doors to NHS patients from Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire (BSW).
The Sulis Orthopaedic Centre (SOC) will perform an additional 3,000 planned orthopaedic
operations on suitable NHS patients in BSW every year. This will help to significantly reduce waiting times for many patients awaiting such operations, which include life-changing hip and knee replacements.
Based at Sulis Hospital in Peasedown St John, the SOC is a collaboration between Sulis and three NHS acute hospitals, which are known collectively as BSW Hospitals Group: Great Western Hospital (GWH) NHS Foundation Trust in Swindon, the Royal United Hospitals (RUH) Bath NHS Foundation Trust and Salisbury Foundation Trust (SFT).
Cara Charles-Barks, the Chief Executive of BSW Hospitals Group, said: “We are really pleased to see the Sulis Orthopaedic Centre open its doors to patients from across the BSW Hospitals Group. Not only will it make a real difference by reducing waiting times for orthopaedic surgery, but it will also help to safeguard our services from the increase in demand that we expect to see in the future, due to the ageing population of the people we care for collectively.
One way in which the hospitals will work closely together is in the surgical teams. Patients’ NHS consultant specialists will oversee care throughout and perform the operations, working alongside Sulis’s own surgical and recovery teams. Patients will be cared for at Sulis immediately before and after their operations, but additional pre- and post-operative appointments will continue to take place at their local NHS hospital.
This means they will only need to travel for the operation itself. The SOC builds on an existing, successful working relationship between the RUH and Sulis. The two hospitals formed an official partnership in June 2021 and have been working together closely for the benefit of NHS patients ever since. In April 2024 – March 2025, 750 operations were performed on NHS patients being treated at the RUH, using Sulis’ surgical theatres. The opening of the SOC creates even more capacity for NHS patients, enabling thousands more
people to return to a better quality-of-life sooner than before. It will also help support the government’s targets for reducing NHS waiting lists for elective surgery.
For more information about the Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust visit www.ruh.nhs.uk