A TEMPORARY theatre unit has been approved at a private hospital in York to help the NHS tackle Covid related backlogs.

City of York Councillors approved the move at a meeting of planning committee on Thursday night, despite some councillors opposing a related car park extension and expressing concerns over NHS ‘privatisation.’

The application came from Ramsey Healthcare who sought to erect the unit at the Clifton Park Treatment Centre in Bluebeck Drive.

The new clinic would be modular and link through to the existing building, with parking created to the north.

The meeting heard the unit was a “piece of kit that can be delivered on the back of a lorry.”

The NHS would fund the unit and Ramsey Healthcare the car park.

Council planners agreed with the York NHS Trust that the scheme was needed, with such needs outweighing planning negatives.

They had said: “The new building will provide for the vast majority of orthopaedic elective surgery in the city with the remaining capacity being used to create additional day case capacity for urology patients. The theatre will enable the NHS Trust to protective surgical elective capacity from Covid-19 surges and winter pressures.”

However, among the conditions, the site will have to be restored to what it was before in three years time.