£1.3m robot to improve cancer operations for South Yorkshire patients

Up to 200 people a year with prostate, kidney and bladder cancer will be operated on by one of the world’s most advanced surgical robots at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust after the £1.3m donation.

Robotic surgery, which is being increasingly used by the NHS, can see patients to return home from hospital earlier and allows major operations to be carried out with smaller incisions.

Surgeon will use joysticks and foot pedals to work the robot from a console where they use their eyes, hands and feet to control a 3D high-definition camera which is ten times more accurate than the human eye.

Medics are able to perform complex surgical procedures though small incisions as the sophisticated machine automatically adjusts to compensate for tremors in the human hand.

Patients from Doncaster, Rotherham, Barnsley, Chesterfield and Sheffield will receive surgery from the robot after it was installed in the theatre complex at Sheffield’s Royal Hallamshire Hospital.

Jim Catto, professor of urology at the trust, said: “We currently have one surgical robot in Sheffield which is shared between four different specialties, urology, colorectal, gynaecology and head and neck surgery.

“We run this robot every day, some evenings and many weekends.

“The second robot will mean we can offer this less invasive form of surgery to even more patients, which is fantastic.”

A personal donation was made to Sheffield Hospitals Charity by Dave Allen, chairman of A&S Leisure Group.

Mr Allen said: “It is a great pleasure to donate the funds for a surgical robot to the trust.

“I was recently there attending an appointment and the Professor mentioned this new state-of-the-art robot that they were trying to raise funds for.

“He told me about the difference it would make to patients’ treatment and having just sold one of our businesses, he’d caught me on a good day and I decided I would purchase it for them.”

David Reynolds, Executive Director at Sheffield Hospitals Charity, said: “This is the largest single donation we have ever received and I’d like to personally thank Mr Allen for his incredibly kind donation.

“This extra robot will mean even more patients will benefit from this groundbreaking technology.

“His donation is an extremely welcome addition to the other amazing work we fund, thanks to the generosity all of our other local supporters.”

Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has one of the largest urological surgery units in the country, carrying out more bladder and kidney surgery than any other NHS hospital.

It is the fourth largest NHS trust for prostate cancer.