Staff at Oxford University Hospitals (OUH) NHS Foundation Trust have visited the new Surgical Elective Centre (SEC) at the John Radcliffe Hospital.

Staff were able to see inside the new facility, learn more about how it will operate, and understand the benefits it will bring to patients and teams across OUH.

The new centre will provide additional operating theatre capacity to help address waiting lists for complex routine procedures and meet the needs of the growing population across Oxfordshire and the wider Thames Valley.

The first phase of the SEC will lead to seven additional operating theatres. Two of these are dedicated hybrid theatres featuring advances in theatre technology.

Completion of the first phase of the building is due later this year, with the new theatres opening in a phased programme from summer 2026.

Cheryl Muldoon, Operational Lead for the SEC at OUH, said: “It was fantastic to welcome just under 800 colleagues to the SEC during the day and give them the opportunity to see this exciting new facility for themselves. We’d never done anything like this before and it was really rewarding that so many staff could come and see the SEC before it becomes a restricted clinical space. The feedback from our staff was fantastic, which was wonderful to hear.”

Jason Dorsett, Chief Finance Officer at OUH and Senior Responsible Officer for the SEC, said: “The SEC is a major investment in the future of surgical care at OUH. The additional theatre capacity and new hybrid theatre technology will help us provide more care for our patients, while giving our staff access to modern, purpose-built facilities.

“Thank you to everyone involved with the open day – it was a real success and I was really pleased that so many of our staff came by to see the SEC.”