I followed Mid Wales farmer Melvin on his surgery journey to reveal secrets of Telford’s surgical hub

Since it opened 18 months ago the planned surgery hub in Telford has seen close to 8,000 patients through its doors.

The hub at Princess Royal Hospital concentrates on getting planned treatment done away from the immediate demands and pressures on Shropshire’s emergency departments.

It is making a huge difference to the Shrewsbury & Telford Hospitals NHS Trust (SaTH).

Since it opened in June 2024 the Telford hub has carried out 7,921 elective procedures, with 5,245 of those in the last calendar year.

It will form a crucial part of The Shrewsbury & Telford Hospitals Trust’s transformation.

Eventually Telford will become SaTH’s centre for planned procedures while Royal Shrewsbury Hospital concentrates on emergency care under the trust’s multi-million pound transformation programme.

The Local Democracy Reporting Service went to the hub on Monday (Jan 12, 2026) to follow one patient through his day long journey around the unit from reception to discharge to reveal how the unit is changing the health environment.

The unit, created from a former administration block on the Apley Castle site, takes patients on a circuit of care from admission to checking in, to operating theatre, to a two stage recovery and then discharge and home.

Melvin Jones, aged 56, a dairy and sheep farmer from Llanfair Caereinion in Mid Wales, was one of 32 patients having their operations on Monday.

He was the first patient seen by consultant surgeon Saurav Chakravartty, and had his gall bladder removed. He was home in Mid Wales at 3.40pm in time for tea with no issues reported to hospital staff.

Mr Jones went to see his GP in September 2025 suffering from discomfort and spent some two months on the hospital’s waiting list.

Other members of  the fourth generation farming family have stepped in to help to looking after 180 cattle and 600 sheep on the upland farm but Mr Jones is hoping to be back at work soon.

“We will be lambing in April so this is about the right time for us,” said Mr Jones’s wife Louisa Lindsay-Jones who works for the NHS in Powys as an occupational therapist.

Mr Chakravartty, clinical lead at the hub, said Mr Jones’s operation is now “one of the commonest” procedures.

“The hub has dramatically improved the number of patients we can see and has had a big impact on the waiting lists,” he said.

Matron Claire Marsh said the unit operates by ironing out time that might have previously been wasted in things like walking up and down stairs to retrieve patient notes. 

They make sure that all the documents are sorted out and everyone is ready to go in the four operating theatres.

“Up to 20 patients can arrive in the morning with another 20 in the afternoon,” she said.

There are special ‘pods’ where patients and a loved one wait for their operations. 

After an operation is carried out, patients keep the same bed and are moved to one of 16 stage one recovery areas to wake up from their anaesthetic.

After then there are another 16 stage two recovery beds where patients stay until they are fit for discharge.

Mr Chakravartty said the constant activity makes it “better for professionals to work in and encourages staff.

“This definitely makes me want to get out of bed and get to work. It has improved the way that we work.”

Mr Jones’s gall bladder removal operation took about 90 minutes with some of that time for anaesthetic to kick in.

Overall the trust is now carrying out some 1,600 operations every month reducing the overall elective waiting list by 30 per cent in the last year. The same list for children has been slashed by 40 per cent.

The proportion of patients waiting more than 52 weeks has been reduced from seven per cent to 0.2 per cent, putting SaTH in the top performing quartile in the country.

The percentage of patients treated within 18 weeks rose from 48.1 per cent in April to 65.5 per cent at the end of November 2025. It was the most improved trust in the country in the period April-September 2025.

And for cancer referral to treatment  it has recorded its  best performance in over three years.