Published on: 3 December 2020
South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust is exceeding national targets for cancer treatment thanks to its latest team member – a surgical robot.
The DaVinci Xi robot is a £2million investment for the Trust and the second of its kind being used at Sunderland Royal Hospital to operate on patients who need urgent cancer treatment.
The new recruit is helping specialist surgeons to perform life-saving laparoscopic surgery on more patients with cancers, including including prostate, bladder, kidney, bowel and oral cancers and is helping to dramatically reduce waiting times.
Despite the challenges of COVID-19, 86% of patients received their urology treatment within the recommended 62 days in August 2020 and the latest data for September shows the Trust is the best performing in the Northern Cancer Alliance region for urgent GP referrals for suspected cancers with 94.54% of patients being seen with 2 weeks of seeing their GP.
Thanks to the DaVinci Xi robot, surgeons at South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust are able to offer faster and more precise surgery that is improving outcomes for cancer patients and the length of time they have to spend in hospital. This puts the Trust ahead in terms of cancer performance across the region and is testament to the work that has gone on to maintain cancer services throughout the pandemic and ensure people continue to receive their urgent cancer treatments.
Kanagasabai Sahadevan, who is a Consultant Urological Surgeon at South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust, set up the service at Sunderland with his colleagues and had to undertake the rigorous training involved to be able to operate with the robot. He said: “Robotic surgery is a game changer and allows us to provide life-saving treatment to thousands of cancer patients. With two robotic systems in place we are able to perform even more cancer operations – quicker than we ever have before.
“We can now operate on patients who before would have been seen as too risky for open surgery as the robot allows us to perform minimally invasive procedures. This reduces the risk of complications like bleeding, results in a quicker recovery time after surgery and a shorter stay in hospital. In fact, our robotic bladder cancer programme has one of the shortest hospital stays in the country.”
We are very proud to offer world class robotic surgery right here in Sunderland and we want to remain at the forefront of advances in technology so that we can continue to provide the best care to our patients.”
The use of robotic surgery at Sunderland Royal has made a major contribution to improving the quality of services and care provided to patients and since 2013 surgeons at the Trust have carried out more than 1,300 procedures.
The DaVinci system has multiple arms that are controlled by surgeons using hand-held instruments. Sitting at a master control console, the surgeon controls the system’s robotic arms, equipped with jointed ‘wrists’ which exceed the range of motion of the human hand, while also reducing tremor.
This cutting edge technology drastically improves upon conventional keyhole surgery by reducing pain and recovery times, less need for blood transfusions, fewer complications and better outcome for the patient.
While much of the robotic surgery in Sunderland concentrates on prostate cancer operations, the robot is also frequently used to operate on patients with bladder, kidney, bowel and some tongue and oral cancers too.
For more information about Robotic Surgery at South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust visit the website: www.stsft.nhs.uk
