A DAD has had “life-transforming” surgery at Cheshire and Merseyside Surgical Centre.

Wirral University Teaching Hospital’s (WUTH) Cheshire and Merseyside Surgical Centre at Clatterbridge treated 3,000 patients in its first year – as it marks the opening of phase two.

The second phase of the multi-million-pound surgical centre has now opened, with 3,000 elective patients having been treated in phase one in its first year.

Stephen Forster, 54, who is a GP at Pensby Group Practice in Heswall, is among the patients to have had planned surgery at the centre at Clatterbridge Hospital.

Stephen, a father of two from Wirral, said: “I started getting knee pain about 18 months ago and after some investigations, I found out I had an arthritic right knee. I was always running up until my knee pain but found I couldn’t run anymore, and I also used to go skiing.”

After undergoing life-transforming knee surgery, Stephen said he is “looking forward to being physically active again”.

Stephen said: “I’d like to go skiing again. The surgery has had a big impact on my life.

“The centre was excellent throughout the whole journey – the facilities, the staff, everything. I couldn’t fault it and all the staff were brilliant.

“Having medical knowledge, I was worried about post-surgery infection but when you have a new theatre like this it reduces the risk of infection and in terms of cleanliness it was the best you could possibly get.”

Phase one of the Cheshire and Merseyside Surgical Centre opened with two new surgical theatres in November 2022 treating an extra 3,000 elective patients a year, from across Cheshire and Merseyside. These included around 1,500 urology patients, over 800 orthopaedics patients, over 350 general surgery cases, 150 gynaecological patients and 140 breast patients.

Hayley Kendall, Chief Operating Officer of Wirral University Teaching Hospital which runs the centre, said: “There are many examples of lives that have been changed thanks to their surgery at the centre. To have this wonderful facility available to the region and having treated 3,000 patients so far, is phenomenal and we are looking forward to treating even more patients now that phase two is open.”

With two more theatres now opened in phase two of the project, this will increase capacity to treat 6,000 extra elective patients a year. Around 85% of patients at Cheshire and Merseyside Surgical Centre are day cases such as hernias, biopsies and arthroscopy keyhole surgeries with the other 15% being at least one overnight stay including joint replacements, mastectomies and prostate cancers.