In spite of accumulation of routine operations, NHS hospitals have been advised to make a delay in the Elective surgery of all those patients who have recently recovered from the Omicron for at least seven to fourteen days.
UK experts say it is a precaution since the first couple of months following the infection is a very risky period, also linked to poorer post-operative recovery.
Only in some circumstances the surgery can be carried ahead on urgent bases but the patient should ideally have had all of their COVID-19 vaccines too.
The two Royal Colleges representing those professions, and the experts from surgery and Anaesthesia have issued the advice of delaying the elective surgery.
The experts who gave the recommendations, are published in a journal called Anaesthesia, says that the desire to handle the waiting lists and backlogs must be balanced with delivering the safest care possible.
They said patients with prolonged symptoms and those with moderate-to-severe COVID, may have to wait for longer time than seven weeks.
The same advice was also issued before for the same reasons related to COVID-19 variants but now it has been given again after calculating the adversity of the Omicron strain
The experts for a fact say that Omicron causes less severe illness and guidance may be revised as more data becomes available.
NHS England data shows that a record of 6.1 Million people or one in nine of the UK population was waiting treatment for the treatment to start at the end of December. This was the highest number ever recorded since the starting of the collection of data in August 2020.
Just after being recovered from Omicron a patient needs to mandatory wait for seven to fourteen days for opting for elective surgery. The guidance will only increase the length of UK’s record NHS waiting list.
Health experts say that precaution is very important because of the risks that come along with surgery within the first two months, following an infection and the period has also has been linked to poorer post-operative recovery.
However, the experts advise against operating on patients within the first ten days, as the infection may cause more damage than already done and the staff might also catch the infection.
