We have saved the NHS £1.5m on operations, say GPs in Norwich

In its manifesto, Labour said it would deliver an extra 40,000 operations, scans and appointments a week – two million a year – in England by introducing more weekend services, as well as turning to the private sector.

Dr Alex Baker, who is also a GP partner at St Stephen’s Gate, said they had worked with local hospitals, commissioners and consultants to “find solutions to improve the long waiting times”.

“We have saved the NHS £1.5m this year, external and that’s across all of our surgical specialities,” she said.

“By us doing these day cases, it frees up the hospital to do their much more complicated cases that require general anaesthetics or inpatient stays.

“If 100 GP surgeries are able to embark on a similar setting to this, we could really come a long way to meet the targets that Labour has introduced.

“If you could extrapolate that to many other sites across the country, you could make a huge difference to the current situation to the NHS.”

NHS England has been contacted for comment.