Our Draft Case for Change, which was published in July 2018, sets out the challenges being faced by local hospital services. This included feedback from staff and patients of their current experiences of working in, or using, our hospital services.
By working together across South Tyneside and Sunderland, our aim is to improve patient experiences, address vulnerable service areas and deliver the highest possible quality and safety standards to improve our patient outcomes and deliver clinical excellence in everything we do. We also need to make sure we deliver this within the financial and other resources available to us.
Phase Two of the Path to Excellence is looking at surgical care and how we look after people who need an operation.
When we talk about ‘surgery’ or ‘surgical services’, this covers two main areas:
- Trauma and orthopaedics – This type of surgery is to do with bones, joints and muscles. Trauma is the word we use to describe emergency operations to fix badly broken bones or injuries. For example, a broken hip. Orthopaedics is the word we use to describe planned operations on bones joints or muscles. For example, a new hip or knee replacement.
- General surgery – This type of surgery covers many parts of the body. Patients with cancer will often undergo general surgery as part of their planned treatment. The main operations we do are on the stomach (tummy), colorectal (bowels) and surgery to fix hernias. We also provide a specialist bariatric surgery service to help people with obesity. Some common emergency operations include gallbladder removal or removing a swollen or painful appendix. Most of our general surgery is now ‘keyhole’ surgery, which means a shorter stay in hospital and a quicker return to normal activities.
To be clear, the Case for Change is NOT a consultation document, but an update on our thinking so far which is designed to support further staff, patient and public engagement. Feedback gathered on our ‘working ideas’ will be considered as part of the pre-consultation business case to help develop and refine future scenarios to take forward for formal public consultation.
You can take a look at the latest Case for Change document in the Publications section of the website.