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A monthly journal for all operating theatre staff covering surgical and anaesthesia news. 2024 February issue The post-anaesthetic care of a patient following impacted wisdom tooth extraction New Inquiry: NHS Leadership, Performance and Patient Safety Pensioner goes home within hours of having heart valve replacement surgery A student’s Reflection on an experience within the obstetrics theatre Multidisciplinary clinical hub at Cardiff Met offers new vision for healthcare delivery January issue The change in practice of aortic procedures following the introduction of hybrid theatre in a tertiary centre. Evolving heart surgery education is crucial to equip surgeons with the skills to match the technology. A case study detailing the postoperative recovery of an elective patient. Why managing NHS waiting lists is about safety, not just numbers. Keeping an eye on bad behaviour in the operating theatre. Reducing oxygen levels for children in intensive care will save lives, new study shows. Navigating burnout in healthcare: A critical examination of operating theatre staff in the UK. 2023 December issue Royal Papworth patient is first recruit to new ‘blood powder’ heart surgery research trial. A simple guide to the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF). The post-anaesthesia care of an elective inguinal hernia repair patient. Surgical teams at Southmead Hospital carry out 24 robotic-assisted gynaecology procedures in two days. New deep learning challenge to estimate breast density from mammograms. Retained swabs following invasive procedures: Themes identified from a review of NHS serious incident reports. November 2023 Workplace ostracism is clearly associated with healthcare workers’ job satisfaction, stress and perceived health. London operating department practitioner advocacy pilot project. How to share decision-making about major surgery for people at high risk of complications. Proportion of people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities registering to donate on the NHS Organ Donor Register is on the rise Trends in cancer. The world’s first collection of brain metastasis living samples will help treat each patient with the most effective therapy for them. Children’s Surgery Magic October 2023 A reflection on my learning as an individual and as part of a team during my second-year anaesthetic placement. Region-wide AI deal to help tackle waiting lists across nine NHS trusts. North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Trust uses RealWear headsets for training. Patients treated sooner thanks to Joint Working to Improve Orthopaedic Care. “Embracing Sustainability in the Operating Theatre: The Shift to Reusable Scrub Caps”. September issue Serious hazards of transfusion (SHOT) report warns of alarming increase in transfusion errors and harm to patients. Doctors cut waiting list for breast cancer surgery patients. Study reveals surgeons need to improve how they communicate with patients about new procedures. Professor Sir Terence Stephenson, "all NHS trusts must use barcodes to locate high-risk devices". Nurses’ intentions to quit increased during the pandemic despite their high resilience. August issue Most common medical claims: How to avoid malpractice allegations. Report recommends packaging and labelling change to prevent implant ‘never event’. New guidance on safe injection practice in hospitals emphasises the importance of prefilled and labelled syringes in avoiding medication errors. Progress with the new hospital programme. Advancements in minimally invasive surgery: Techniques, instruments, and patient outcomes. July issue NHS must accept accountability and learn from mistakes. Simulation based education in healthcare higher education: In what ways does it impact perceived clinical confidence, knowledge, and skills acquisition in student Operating Department Practitioners? Risk reduction in endo-tracheal tube fixation. Historic plan launched to move Wales towards zero deaths from bowel cancer. Taking higher-than-recommended doses of Vitamin D for five years reduced the risk of atrial fibrillation. As complications from cosmetic tourism rise, UK and Turkish plastic surgeons unite to issue consumer guidelines. New research highlights opportunities to improve care of patients having major surgery. June issue How to THRIVE in the Operating Theatre Preoperative optimisation: The effect of prehabilitation interventions on the postoperative recovery of cancer patients undergoing colorectal surgery – Literature review and discussion based paper. Surgeons must tackle three global health challenges to save lives. “PERUSE before you Infuse”. Artificial Intelligence could speed up heart attack diagnosis, SurgiBox: Ukraine’s SurgiBox Project has been successfully demonstrating safe surgery to patients around the world May issue Reducing mortality in emergency surgery: Focussing minds through a national clinical audit in the NHS. Majority of NHS trusts do not offer training to prevent sexual harassment, study finds. Handwashing during ‘normal times’ can reduce burden of respiratory disease. The Surgical Education Checklist as a tool to improve teaching within the operating theatre. April issue NatSSIPs 2 Sequential Steps: The NatSSIPs Eight – Flowchart. Mobile operating theatre helping drive down waiting times in Yorkshire. Why hospitals and ICBs are seeking new intel to find hidden high-risk patients on waiting lists. March issues NHS Scotland first in world to ‘clean up’ anaesthetic gases. New standards to Improve the safety of invasive procedures in the NHS. Researchers suggest novel cutpoints for diagnosing cardiac hypertrophy in adolescents and young adults. NHS patients targeted to reduce risks as they wait for hospital treatment. February New standards to improve the safety of invasive procedures in the NHS. Delphi Study Round Three – A study across NHS England hospital trust operating theatres. Crash and burn(out) – Aviation-style safety checklist and confidential helpline for surgical community to prevent mental health crisis. A Wound Care Study: has the pandemic led to new and improved ways of working? HSIB investigation: Access to critical patient information at the bedside. Artificial intelligence, Patient safety and achieving the quintuple aim in anaesthesiology. January Delphi Study Round Two – A study across NHS England hospital trust operating theatres. Intercollegiate green theatre checklist Local Interventions to support the recovery of elective surgery at the University College London Hospitals department of theatres & anaesthesia. 2022 December issue Delphi Study Round One – A study across NHS England Hospital Trust operating theatres. Managing NHS backlogs and waiting times in England. Steroid injections worsen knee arthritis, according to two new studies. First robotic hysterectomy completed in Wales. World’s first algae-based local anaesthetic another step closer to reality. How new bacterial species siscovered in Asian soil could help battle against antibiotic resistance November issue New research calls for all health and care staff to be trained in AI Reducing noise in operating theatre improves children’s behaviour after surgery, study finds Brain tumour patient operated on awake while playing saxophone No difference between spinal versus general anaesthesia in patients having hip fracture surgery finds study October issue Why are intra-operative surgical Never Events still occurring in NHS operating theatres? Radical rethink needed to improve safety in health and social care. World Anaesthesia Day 2022: History, significance, celebrations and theme. £4 million “space-age” operating theatre will help bring down eye surgery backlog. Two thirds of nurses choosing between food and fuel as cost of living bites and one in five turn to food banks. ‘An inspirational story’: Hartlepool cleaner changes career to become hospital nurse. September issue Service evaluation of the current World Health Organisation’s Surgical Safety Checklist in spine surgery at the University Hospitals of Derby & Burton. Could this lead to a change in NHS Improvement? The Anaesthetic Gas Scavenging System Project. Cancelled operations could be prevented by an earlier anaemia test and time to prepare. The top 10 things experts need you to know about screening during Gynaecological Cancer Awareness Month September 2022 £35.5m for New Friarage Hospital Operating Theatres. New robotic surgical system revolutionises patient care at UHCW. Insourcing: Giving NHS operating theatre teams a helping hand. Arterial stiffness raises blood pressure in adolescents via insulin resistance. Birmingham’s Public Health Chief is among sector leaders to receive university honours,

This article, published in BMJ Quality and Safety, examines the relationships between non-routine events, teamwork and patient outcomes in paediatric cardiac surgery. Structured observation of effective teamwork in the operating room can identify deficiencies in the system and conduct of procedures, even in otherwise successful operations. High performing teams are more resilient, displaying effective teamwork when operations become more difficult.

Surgeons' News is a magazine for surgical, dental and allied healthcare professionals. Published quarterly by the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, it features comment and opinion from leading professionals, plus reviews and reports on subjects relevant to all career levels.

This infographic by the Royal College of Anaesthetists shows some of the common events and risks that healthy children and young people of normal weight face when having a general anaesthetic (GA) for routine surgery. It highlights that modern anaesthetics are very safe and that most common side effects are usually not serious or long lasting. It also outlines the conversations children and their families should expect to have with their anaesthetist prior to their procedure.

This webpage provides an overview of how human factors affect outcomes in surgical emergencies. It includes: An introduction to human factors Video exploring the case of Elaine Bromiley Explanation of human error and the Swiss Cheese Model Table of factors that reduce human error 'What if?' video showing how simple changes could have resulted in a different outcome in Elaine Bromiley's case Practical tips for managing the paediatric airway in a critically ill child

CORESS is an independent charity, which aims to promote safety in surgical practice in the NHS and the private sector. CORESS receives confidential incident reports from surgeons and theatre staff. These reports are analysed by the Advisory Board, who make comments and extract lessons to be learned. Aiming to educate, and avoid blame, CORESS calls on surgeons to recognise a near miss or adverse event, react by taking action to stop it happening and then report the incident to CORESS so that the lessons can be published. Every month CORESS highlight's one of the cases reported for you to consider the issues raised and read the experts comments. The focus of CORESS is on detecting and learning from no-harm, near-miss and low harm events encountered during routine surgical practice. The programme collects reports of such events, analyses them and disseminates the learning contained within them to a wide surgical audience and other agencies involved in Patient Safety matters. These events are known collectively as ‘Accident Precursor Events’ or simply ‘Precursors’. See previous reports below. Summer 2021 - Unrecognised limb ischemia following trauma, differences of opinion in management for tongue laceration, lack of communication in patient discharge, consequences of service disruption during the COVID-19 Pandemic, systems and communications errors leading to orthopaedic Never Event, too slick by half. Winter 2020 - Missed pulmonary embolism, gastrectomy kit miscommunication, leaking gastrostomy, fatal pulmonary embolus after renal cancer surgery, ureteric injury, PICC line misplacement, CVP line causing haemothorax. Summer 2020 - Thoracic outlet surgery complications, missed breast tumour in pooled case, abscess confusion, injection error, fall from grace, atypical thromboses.

Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) is designed to improve the quality of care within the NHS by reducing unwarranted variations. By tackling variations in the way services are delivered across the NHS, and by sharing best practice between trusts, GIRFT identifies changes that will help improve care and patient outcomes, as well as delivering efficiencies such as the reduction of unnecessary procedures and cost savings. In England, there are around 200 specialist paediatric surgeons working across 22 specialist trusts. This report presents recommendations to improve surgery for children based on visits to these specialist centres and 67 high-volume, non-specialist trusts. Key recommendations include: delivering surgery for the most complex conditions in fewer centres of expertise. reducing the number of unnecessary operations. increasing the scope of day surgery. You will need a FutureNHS account to view this report, or you can view a short video summary which includes key recommendations.

For over a decade, the preoperative timeout procedure has been implemented in most paediatric surgery units. However, the impact of this intervention has not been systematically studied. This study from Muensterer et al. evaluates whether purposefully introduced errors during the timeout routine are detected and reported by the operating team members. The study found that errors in the timeout routine go unnoticed by the team in almost half of cases. Therefore, even if preoperative timeout routines are strictly implemented, mistakes may be overlooked. Hence, the timeout procedure in its current form appears unreliable. Future developments may be useful to improve the quality of the surgical timeout and should be studied in detail.

Since 2015 Quomodus has developed the digital course 'Diathermy – a practical guide to electrosurgery' for surgeons and other professional users of electrosurgery. The 30-minute course covers the history of electrosurgery, indication and proper use, adverse effects and complications associated with the use of diathermy. The course has been tested and quality assured by health professionals in Scandinavia. The course is flexible, user friendly and applies to all models of diathermy equipment currently on the market.

This US study, published in Pediatrics, found that even among apparently healthy children, being African American is strongly associated with a higher risk of postoperative complications and mortality. Mechanisms underlying the established racial differences in postoperative outcomes may not be fully explained by the racial variation in preoperative comorbidity.

The Inquiry into the management of care of children receiving complex heart surgery at the Bristol Royal Infirmary. View all of the material published throughout the course of the Inquiry.

NHS colleagues are working hard to restore elective care, but data shows that activity for children and young people (CYP) is still below pre-pandemic levels and recovery remains behind rates seen in adult services. The specialties of ENT, dental services, ophthalmology, urology, and trauma and orthopaedics (including spinal surgery) are especially challenged, with the longest waiting lists for surgery for young patients. Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) has supported NHS England’s drive for CYP elective recovery by developing concise guidance –Closing the gap: Actions to reduce waiting times for children and young people – offering ten actions which can help reduce waiting times for children, as well as quick links to data, resources and best practice case studies. The ten actions address how to improve theatre capacity, increase theatre utilisation and streamline pathways of care, and include practical measure such as adding extra sessions or ‘super events’ for children’s surgery, avoiding procedures of limited medical benefit by using clinical decision tools, and staggering children’s admission times. The guidance links to a series of case studies demonstrating how teams across England have taken innovative measures to address their waiting times.