NHS Glasgow spends £600,000 on major upgrade

Inverclyde Royal Hospital will benefit from NHS spending of £600,000 on state-of-the-art orthopaedic theatre equipment

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHSGGC) is investing more than £600,000 in a major upgrade of orthopaedic operating theatres at the Inverclyde Royal Hospital (IRH).

The move is aimed at future proofing the hospital’s orthopaedic theatres with the very latest in state-of-the-art air filtration technology.

Jim Crombie, NHSGGC Director of Surgery and Anaesthetics, said: “Every year more than 2,500 orthopaedic surgical procedures are carried out at the IRH by our expert consultant team based there.

“The hospital provides the full range of orthopaedic services to the people of Inverclyde and to ensure that this is sustained we are investing significantly in the infrastructure of our orthopaedic theatres.

“Air filtration systems are a vital component in all operating theatres but nowhere are they more important that within orthopaedics given the very specialist nature of this type of surgery.

The upgrading work began yesterday and is anticipated to be complete by early May.

Crombieadded: “During this period the vast majority of orthopaedic surgical procedures, including trauma, will continue to be provided from the IRH. However we will have to temporarily provide all hip and knee replacement surgery from the New Victoria Hospital in Glasgow. As soon as the upgradingwork is compete this activity will transfer back to the IRH.”

IRH orthopaedic consultant Andrew Chappel adds:  “I am delighted that time and money is being invested in improving the orthopaedic theatres at IRH. This will allow us to continue to provide a wide and varied orthopaedic service for our local population and to continue to improve this as new developments occur.  We will have an improved ultraclean air flow theatre which is essential for all our joint replacements both upper and lower limb”.

Jim Crombie also added that without the support, dedication and outstanding commitment of the whole clinical team at IRH this significant investment programme could not have taken place.

For those joint replacement patients who undergo their procedure in Glasgow their procedures will be booked in so as to prevent them from being in hospital over the weekend to minimise journeys for their visitors.

In addition any patient who requires a longer post operative inpatient stay than the average three to five days will be transferred back to the IRH following their surgery so that relatives do need to make repeated journeys to Glasgow.

This latest investment in surgical facilities at the IRH follows an investment of more than £700,000 in the creation of a new state-of-the-art endoscopy suite at the hospital last year.