In the UK, day surgery has been one of the key strategies used to modernise the NHS. It addresses the need to reduce waiting times, improves cost efficiency, and most importantly makes health services more patient centred.
The benefits of this increasingly popular approach to treatment apply anywhere in the world, and impact on those concerned in the following ways:
• Patients receive the appropriate treatment and are able to recover in their own homes. Cancellation of surgery due to emergency pressures in a dedicated day surgery unit is unlikely and the risk of hospital acquired infection is reduced.
• Clinicians are able to provide high quality care for appropriate patients, releasing inpatient beds for more major cases.
• Hospitals improve their throughput of patients and reduce waiting lists.
In response to this and with the aim of maximising the benefits, hospital equipment designers, such as British-based Anetic Aid, have focused time and energy on producing equipment systems that combine the capabilities of a patient transport trolley and an operating table.
Guy Schofield, managing director of the company’s manufacturing operation in Portsmouth explained: “The challenge for us as manufacturers was to combine the manoeuvrability of a trolley with the key attributes of an operating table. One of the most important of these is access, both for the surgeon and for X-ray/imaging. In designing our most recent powered model of the QA4 Day Surgery System, we have a traversing top giving 100% C-armaccess. This was easily the most difficult thing to achieve in engineering terms, and we are particularly pleased with the results because the equipment offers complete stability for a patient weighing up to 250 Kg, even when the top is fully extended.”
This enhanced weight capacity is also a significant factor for lifting and handling considerations. In a traditional operating scenario, a patient would be admitted to a ward where they would get into a bed before being transferred to a trolley and wheeled into the operating theatre and transferred again to the operating table. After the operation, the whole process would be reversed, meaning the patient would need to be transferred between equipment four times.
Both the QA4 (P) and a lighter manual version, the QA4 (M) remove the need for any such physical transfer of the patient.
