NUH staff find innovative way to tackle surgery waiting lists
Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH) is using high intensity theatre lists – known as HIT lists – to help reduce the backlog for non-emergency surgery.
Staff have been looking into innovative ways to tackle the waiting list for routine operations and procedures, and have developed an efficient but safe programme to maximise the number of patients treated in one day.
The HIT lists focus on one type of procedure at a time, and take place at weekends. They require careful planning to select suitable patients.
The gynaecology surgical robotic programme at City Hospital carried out six robotic-assisted hysterectomies on a Saturday HIT list - three times the number of patients compared to a regular surgical list.
As well as a shorter operating time, using a surgical robot provides surgeons with better precision and accuracy during procedures.
When compared with standard keyhole or open surgery approaches, robotic-assisted surgery offers patients procedures that are less invasive with a shorter recovery time.
Of the six patients operated, all were discharged the next day freeing up much needed hospital beds.
The gynaecology HIT list at NUH has been led by Mr Ketankumar Gajjar, consultant gynaecologist and robotic surgeon.
Dr Gajjar said: “We have looked at every aspect of the patient’s pathway in detail to see where we can safely improve on efficiency and save time. It requires a dedicated multidisciplinary team and lots of preparation, which is the key to our success.
“From the patient perspective they are just having the procedure and don’t notice the work behind the scenes. It’s great we can see even more patients and reduce their stay in hospital and recovery time.
“We hope we can increase our HIT list capacity even more and run two theatres at the same time to further reduce waiting lists and benefit our patients.”
The gynaecology HIT list involves:
- Increasing the number of anaesthetic, surgical and theatre staff in order to minimise the turnaround time between cases, making more time available for the surgeon to operate.
- Using two surgeons working as a pair – this allows for many more cases to be done in the same time period and address any issues that may arise.
- Several multidisciplinary meetings led by Mr Gajjar were required to select suitable cases, patients and team members and to plan the equipment and order of the lists – they include managers, administration staff, therapists, nurses, pharmacists, anaesthetists and surgeons.