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This study focuses on the master surgical scheduling problem and adds two main contributions. First, it presents a novel mixed integer programming model to support the master surgical schedule production. Second, it uses the model to investigate the impact, in terms of scheduled surgeries, of the flexible management of three critical resources, namely surgical teams, operating rooms and surgical units. Our analysis revealed that to maximise the number of surgeries scheduled, it is sufficient to introduce flexibility with respect to surgical teams and ORs. In fact, if both these resources are managed flexibly, then introducing flexibility with respect to surgical units carries no additional advantages. However, if surgical teams or ORs (or both) are not managed flexibly, then managing surgical units flexibly produces significant benefits. In addition, our study shows that if surgical teams cannot be managed flexibly …