Receiving treatment at Croydon Elective Centre

Croydon Elective Centre is a dedicated area within Croydon University Hospital for us to restart our important services following the COVID-19 outbreak.

The Elective Centre provides a protected environment for you to come in for your treatment, with strict infection control policies and controlled access, ensuring we protect you, and our staff, from the virus.

Find out how we're keeping you safe with Consultant Surgeon, Stella Vig

What are we doing to protect you?

We are putting in place a number of measures to protect you during your visit to hospital. These include:

  • Following strict infection prevention protocols and social distancing guidance
  • Deep-cleaning our hospital theatres, equipment and wards even more often
  • Providing dedicated operating theatres for patients being treated for planned procedures, away from other areas of the hospital
  • Keeping our staff safe by providing them with the necessary personal protective equipment (PPE)
  • Ensuring that anyone who comes to hospital for surgery and some other planned care has followed guidance on self-isolating and tested negative for coronavirus

Where is Croydon Elective Centre?

Situated in the hospital’s London Wing (Blue Zone), Croydon Elective Centre includes ten operating theatres, Coulsdon 1 and Dolphin Day Units, Queens 1 ward, our cardiac catheter lab and some other areas, forming a new space sealed off from the rest of the hospital to provide a protective environment for you when you come into the hospital for planned procedures. This is also called a “COVID protected area.”

You can view a map of the Croydon Elective Centre by clicking here

What do you need to do before your treatment?

You will be asked to carry out a lateral flow test 3 days before their theatre procedure and on the day of the procedure. This can be carried out at home or in the swabbing pod. To purchase your lateral flow tests, see the government website.

If you are a patient who is deemed as Clinically Extremely Vulnerable (and will have received a national NHS letter declaring this) will require a PCR screening 48 hours prior to surgery as per our current Trust policy. 

All patients will be asked to minimise their exposure risk between tests and the procedure, but will not be asked to formally isolate.

Where can I order a lateral flow test?

If you need to order a lateral flow test you can do this on the government website here or by telephoning 119, confirming that you have a planned upcoming admission to hospital. You should only dial 119 if you cannot order online.

We advise that you order them at least 10 days before your expected procedure, so there is enough time for them to arrive. If patients are identified as unable to order a test, they will be referred to the swabbing clinic.

Where is the COVID swabbing pod?

The COVID swabbing pod is a drive-in testing clinic housed behind the hospital’s Emergency Department. This can be accessed via Crossland Road, as marked on the map below. Access will not be available via the Emergency Department car park. 

The swabbing pod can only be accessed from outside of the hospital as a drive in service, as per the map below. Please do not enter the hospital.  

A trained healthcare professional will complete a COVID-19 PCR test—a simple nose and throat swab—through your car window. 

A map of the COVID-19 swabbing pod