May ‘must fund pledge on NHS technology’
Region’s hospitals join revolution in surgery Prostate procedure requires ‘superhuman’ precision
CREAKING SYSTEMS are going to let down the NHS if the technological future of the health service is not secured, leading thinktanks have warned.
Calls are being made today for Theresa May to make good on her promise of investment in NHS technology – from earlier diagnoses to lifesaving apps and devices – in order to give patients the best possible care in future.
Technology “has the potential to transform healthcare” if properly funded, the think-tanks said, just weeks after the Prime Minister’s speech on the future of the NHS, in which she outlined the field as central to her plans.
Mrs May pledged that the NHS in England will get an extra £20bn a year in funding by 2023 as it prepares to celebrate its 70th anniversary tomorrow.
It comes as a landmark report, led by former Health Minister Lord Ara Darzi, suggested the NHS could free up time by investing in automation technology.
Tom Kibasi, director of the IPPR think-tank, said: “It’s essential that the Government follows through on Theresa May’s promise to adopt our recommendation for a ‘tilt towards tech’ across the health service. Our report looked hard at what the NHS needs in order to provide world-beating healthcare for a changing population in the decades to come.”
The Department for Health said it has this week announced £215m for new research to tackle “the biggest challenges facing our health system”.
Elsewhere, North Yorkshire’s health watchdog has written to Mrs May, raising concerns about local NHS CCG finances.
FOR PATIENTS awaiting complex operations in NHS hospitals, a safe pair of hands is always a comforting thought.
But in England’s modern-day health service, they aren’t always that of a surgeon.
Hospital trusts in Yorkshire are among a series across the country now employing da Vinci Robots, controlled remotely by surgeons, to carry out groundbreaking procedures requiring pinpoint and “superhuman” precision.
The robots, which cost nearly £2m, are now used to carry out kidney and prostate removals, bowel cancer and tonsil surgery and even bladder removals.
Surgeons use joysticks and foot pedals to manoeuvre its robotic arms from a console, where they can use their eyes, hands and feet to control a 3D camera which is 10 times more accurate than the human eye.
Having already soared past a remarkable 1,000 operations since its introduction in 2013, Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust’s da Vinci robot was used to treat David Holmes last month when he walked through the doors of the city’s Royal Hallamshire Hospital and was only the second patient to be discharged on the same day.
The 61-year-old, from Loxley, Sheffield was told the devastating news that he had prostate cancer earlier this year.
“I didn’t have any of the usual symptoms,” the father-of-three told The Yorkshire Post.
“After some long tests dragged on for four or five weeks, I found out that I had got prostate cancer.
“I had to choose then between radiotherapy or a prostatectomy – having my prostate removed – they call it ‘robotic surgery’.”
Mr Holmes, a former journalist and latterly a journalism lecturer at the University of Sheffield, spent time consulting with friends, organisations and former patients who had undergone both methods of treatment in order to make his decision. “They took me through what is involved,” he said.
“They throw all these statistics at you but the things no one wants to be left with after having their prostate removed is incontinence and impotence.”
A keen runner, Mr Holmes spoke with other patients who had undergone the procedure who were equally active, and was surprised to find one who was once again running marathons after having his prostate removed.
“After a long period of agonising and consulting with people, I decided to go for it,” he said.
In another milestone for the trust in Sheffield, Mr Holmes then became only the second person to have the operation carried out with the robot as a day case, where he would undergo the procedure and be discharged on the same day.
“I was braced for a really bad time,” he said.
“But when they rang me up and said they could get me home in a day I thought that was incredible.
“It’s done remotely by a surgeon who uses the robot to make five tiny incisions – about a centimetre wide.
“In I went, and a few hours later I was sitting in hospital wired full of morphine [after the operation].
“They got me eating something and then checked me out. That evening I was back in my garden.”
After being discharged, he had to spend the first week at home fitted with a catheter, which he admitted was extremely uncomfortable.
But he was shocked to see the speed that his body was bouncing back after the robotassisted surgery.
“Each day I was amazed at how quickly I was recovering,” he said.
“A week later, they took the catheter out and I haven’t looked back. I went home and my wife was out and I went for a twomile walk. It was slow but I have walked every day since.”
By June 23, he had taken part in his first running circuit around a nearby cemetery.”
And on Sunday, he managed to complete a two-mile run.
He is still awaiting test results to find out whether the surgery was successful in eradicating the cancer. This week – during the NHS’s 70th anniversary – he will mark one month since he went under the robotic knife.
THE NATIONAL Health Service is – in many respects – emblematic of the advance of technology over the past 70 years. Operations once regarded as complicated, and necessitating long periods of convalescence, are now commonplace as more surgery is undertaken with pinpoint accuracy by state-of-the-art robotic devices which can perform medical miracles. It means people can undergo hip replacements, or operations to remove prostates, as day patients – something that was inconceivable in 1948 – and it is welcome that Yorkshire is at the forefront of these changes.
Together with groundbreaking progress in medical science, it means the NHS is now the victim of its own success as it struggles to meet higher public expectations and the health needs of a growing – and ageing – population. And while it should be a source of major pride that surgery need not be so invasive, therefore lessening the risk of avoidable complications, new technology will only benefit hospitals if there’s a similar investment in after-care.
Though hospital operating theatres can resemble production lines, individuals still need ample medical and nursing support as they recover from their surgery – time and support that has, on occasion, been compromised by the omnipresent day-to-day pressures facing hospitals across the country.
There’s still no substitute for human interaction, whether it be arranging appropriate physiotherapy or a reassuring word from a nurse to a patient about any side-effects. In short, clearer communication is still the best remedy if the NHS wants to do more to help itself.