The way in which the whole NHS, and particularly critical and perioperative care services, rose to the challenge of COVID-19 is simply remarkable. Now, 20 months since the pandemic hit the UK, the service and its workforce are faced with the long, exhausting challenge of elective recovery. With more than 20% of our critical care beds occupied by patients with COVID-19, a disease which didn’t exist two years ago, the need to expand, but also maximise efficiency of both perioperative and critical care services, while also looking after our staff wellbeing, is absolutely critical to how the NHS goes forward. In this talk, I will discuss opportunities for innovation and collaboration in improving patient-centred critical and perioperative care.