Surgical robot demonstration at Burnley General Hospital

A demonstration of the amazing Da Vinci™ surgical robot will be held at a drop-in event at the hospital on Friday November 8th from 10am to 3pm.

Kevin McGee, chief executive of East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust, said: “Ever since the Trust first introduced robot assisted surgery at the Royal Blackburn Teaching Hospital back in 2015, our robot has become more and more popular with surgeons, theatre staff and patients.

“We are confident of installing a new robot on our Burnley site in the very near future, and expanding to become recognised as a ‘Robotic Centre’. This will enable us to treat more people with different types of cancer, more effectively, with the best technology available."

Eeast Lancashire already has the largest and most comprehensive programme of robot assisted surgery in the North-West, with the region’s leading surgeons removing head and neck, urological and colorectal cancers at the Royal Blackburn Teaching Hospital.

Adding a second robot in the near future at Burnley General Hospital means surgeons will perform robot assisted surgery for gynaecological and Hepato-biliary cancers for the first time. The extra capacity will also allow the Trust to perform more robot assisted surgery to remove urology, colorectal and head/neck cancers.

“Traditional surgery is hugely invasive and takes a much longer amount of time, meaning an extended recovery period and substantial scarring for the patient,” explained Mr Shahid Islam, East Lancashire Hospitals’ Clinical Director for Surgery.

“Minimal invasive surgery using the robot has a number of benefits, most importantly for the patient. They experience less pain, recover quicker, have less need for additional treatments or therapies and consequently leave hospital sooner."