Patients wear TV goggles to watch shows during surgery

AN NHS hospital is offering patients video headsets so they can watch their favourite television programmes to distract them during operations.

The Royal Bournemouth Hospital is understood to be the first in the UK to provide hi-tech goggles that allow people to access streaming services such as Netflix and BBC iplayer.

The technology is being trialled for six months and will be made available for patients undergoing procedures under local anaesthetic.

Medical staff said the goggles could help reduce anxiety for people during their operations and help free up hospital beds, potentially saving thousands of pounds for the NHS.

Clare Bent, a radiologist, said: “We are hoping that using the video goggles will keep them distracted during procedures that can take between two and three hours and reduce the need for intravenous sedation.

“Sedation makes the patients sleepy and more relaxed but it can take more than six hours for someone to recover enough to be allowed to go home.

“Often they will stay in overnight. But having a procedure under just local anaesthetic means a patient can be discharged after one or two hours.

“So we hope these video goggles will free up sedation nurses who have to be there, as well as making more bed space available.”

Currently, two pairs of the £1,000 goggles are being used in the endoscopy unit, but could be rolled out across other specialist wards if the trial proves successful.