Published on: 26 April 2024
A Cardiac Catheterisation lab, which saves heart patients’ lives in an emergency or can be used to offer treatment to keep them keep well has undergone a £1million revamp.
The second Catheterisation Laboratory – known as a Cath Lab – within Sunderland Royal Hospital’s Cardiac Centre has reopened following a complete overhaul.
Sunderland Royal Hospital's cath lab team prep a patient for a procedure.
It means the Cardiology Team now have two updated rooms to use in emergencies, including heart attacks, and for planned procedures.
These include angiography and percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), which are used to treat conditions such as coronary artery disease, including angina and heart attack.
The rooms are also used to implant pacemakers if a person has an abnormal heart rhythm.
Each year, the hospital carries out around 1,200 angioplasties, where stents are used to open arteries, the blood vessels which supply the heart muscles, and over 2,000 coronary angiographies, where the heart arteries are assessed.
It also implants around 250 pacemakers.
To be able to do this work, they use imaging, including X-ray, and monitoring, which helps the team as they diagnose and treat.
The new lab offers the latest technology, and this enhances the image quality and lessens radiation exposure to patients and staff.
It also gives patients a better experience, as it is more modern. It has extra touches such as a large screen, which can play calming animations for those who are having their treatment under local anaesthetic.
The procedures are carried out by a team made up of cardiologists, nurses, cardiac physiologists and radiographers.
In addition to the two labs at Sunderland Royal Hospital, South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust runs another at South Tyneside District Hospital, where it is also used by its Radiology Department.
The refurbishment of Cardiac Catheterisation of the Cath Lab 2 at Sunderland was overseen by Dr Mudassar Baig, Consultant Interventional Cardiologist and Cardiac Catheterisation Lab Lead.
He said:
"We are delighted with the timely completion of the refurbishment project without delay.
"The new lab offers a much better working environment for our team and a calming experience to our patients, when it can be a rather stressful journey to treat their health issues.
"This has been a major refurbishment project in the post-Covid era, requiring a lot of planning to carry out our day-to-day activities, including emergency treatment for heart attack patients.
"Our Cath Lab team, including nurses, physiologists and radiographers, have been supportive throughout refurbishment and showed the flexibility and resilience, and this makes us proud."
The room was officially opened by Dr Baig and the Trust’s Executive Medical Director, Dr Shaz Wahid, with a cake decorated with a rainbow and ‘Cath Lab 2 is back in business!’ cut for the occasion.
Dr Shaz Wahid, the Executive Medical Director of STSFT, with Dr Mudassar Baig and team members as the new cath lab at Sunderland Royal Hospital was unveiled.
Dr Wahid said:
"As a Trust it is important we invest in our services and provide “state of the art” technology for the best patient outcomes. This means our patients have the best possible experience too.
"It was great to hear the feedback from the team about how much they were looking forward to working in the new lab and we know this will help the service for many years to come."
The Trust’s Cardiology Team is preparing to mark Heart Failure Awareness Week, which runs from Monday, April 29, to Friday, May 3.
Click here for more information about where the team will be as part of their tour of community venues, with stalls also planned for South Tyneside District Hospital and Sunderland Royal Hospital.
To find out more about the department’s work click here.
