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Mobile Operating Theatre for St Michael's Hospital

A mobile operating theatre has arrived at St Michael’s Hospital in Hayle as part of the Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust’s plans to maximise its use as a centre for planned surgery...

Moving forward the commitment of the Cornwall & Isles of Scilly Primary Care Trust’s Strategic Review to maintain and expand services at St Michael’s Hospitals, the hi-tech theatre will enable the Trust to immediately increase capacity for orthopaedic patients and help us to achieve national waiting time targets. Alongside this, the Trust’s clinical teams are already working on plans to further develop services for the longer term.

Consultant orthopaedic surgeon and clinical director, Mr Mike Regan, said, “St Michael’s has always been an ideal location for planned surgery as it can be almost guaranteed that patients won’t be cancelled at the last minute because of a surge in emergency admissions. We have a great opportunity to develop a centre of excellence for orthopaedic and breast care and staff at St Michael’s are enthusiastically embracing the regeneration of facilities here. The mobile theatre comes fully equipped, including laminar flow (clean air) systems, which are particularly important for our orthopaedic procedures.”

The immediate impact will be the creation of 10 extra theatre sessions at the hospital each week, for planned orthopaedic operations, such as hip and knee replacements. The Trust’s own surgeons and anaesthetists will be carrying out the procedures supported by theatre teams from Vanguard Healthcare who are familiar with the mobile facilities.

The mobile operating theatre is being brought in as existing facilities in the older St Michael’s Hospital buildings, which were closed as they failed to meet current safety and infection control standards, need to be upgraded before they can be brought back into action. The Trust is already drawing up plans for elective breast surgery services to be transferred to St Michael’s Hospital.

Chairman of the Friends of St. Michael’s, Howard Hollingsbee, welcomed the arrival of the theatres. “We are delighted, after all the recent uncertainty, that St Michael’s is set to thrive and develop and I am sure that people both locally and across Cornwall will be equally pleased. We are working closely with the Trust in any way that is consistent with our Constitution, to help the hospital and staff continue to provide and improve on the high standards of care that have always been the hallmark of St. Michael’s.”

The mobile theatre will be fully commissioned over the next week and it is expected that the first patients will be taking advantage of it by 12th March