Representatives of the Holly Trust were fortunate to recently gain a fascinating insight into the latest bowel cancer treatment procedures through a visit to Solihull Hospital’s new operating suite.
There are 6 new theatres, 3 of which are equipped with robotic surgery systems for different specialisms, including one theatre specifically equipped with colorectal surgery. The new theatres could benefit significantly if they also had similar robotic equipment.
During our tour of the new theatres, our guide explained that they had looked at the whole process and one improvement they had made was having a holding area to ensure that the patient was available to be taken into surgery as soon as the previous patient had been treated.
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Patients are taken into the pre-op area. We saw the robotic table that the Holly Trust donated. The purpose of the table is to move the patient, who is secured to the table, to various angles, using gravity to move body parts out of the way, enabling the surgeons to have easier access during the procedure. The table is controlled through the robotic system.
As we stepped into the room, we were immediately drawn to the robotic equipment which to us still looked the stuff of science fiction films. The main device is the Da Vinci Xi.
The robotic system does not operate automatically, rather it provides a system where surgeons manually control it, and can use tools with finer resolution than by hand, using a 3D vision system to see in detail what they are operating on, with controls that allow them to adjust the speed of movement for delicate and precise surgery. The robotic surgery doesn’t just make the surgeon’s life easier, it dramatically improves the success rate of surgery. There are two stations for the surgeons, who can control different elements of the robotic system as required. Aside from the control stations and robot, there is a third part, the vision cart which allows the rest of the surgery team to see the operation and provide some ancillary equipment.
The theatre itself is a simple room with a lot of equipment on trollies, but on closer inspection, the room itself has a number of special features.
The air conditioning system is very sophisticated and can change the air in the theatre 35 times an hour, significantly reducing the risk of infection. The control panel also provides information about the operation, such as timers. The theatre supports laser surgery with blinds for windows, warning lights and eye shields. The lights over the table are easy to position. The anaesthetist’s station is identical to ones used in all the operating theatres – this avoids the risk of operating error as the anaesthetists work across all the theatres in the hospital. Perhaps the best example of attention to detail is the most expensive extension socket we’ve ever seen.
For comparison, we viewed an older operating theatre while in search of “the kettle”, another piece of equipment that the Holly Trust provided. After a phone call, we discovered this was actually a Sun Chip 2 machine (none the wiser?), which is a machine for delivering chemotherapy fluids during surgery. The older theatre had more basic control systems, more mechanical, and we also saw the noisy older aircon system with a Perspex curtain used to control air flow. It was this curtain that made the old theatres unsuitable and the reworking of the old theatres would have been expensive, hence the expansion into a new area.
Solihull does not have an intensive care unit nor a high dependency unit (which was removed when the hospital was reorganised during Covid). Surgery in Solihull is therefore limited to those who have no other complications and are in reasonable health so are not expected to need intensive care after treatment other than the basic post-operative care of recovering from anaesthesia.
As we walked around the surgery area, we saw how the staff worked together, and we were left with a strong impression of a happy, respectful and professional team. It is certainly a place we would be confident to go to if we ever needed their care.
As we left, we were given our next fundraising request, an Omni-Tract, is a system for retracting from multiple angles without the need for lots of assistants.