Surgical changes at Leeds meet challenge of new NHS report

From: David Berridge, Divisional Medical Manager Surgery & Oncology, Leeds General Infirmary.

I READ with interest your article NHS crisis care “risks patients’ lives” after surgery (Yorkshire Post, September 29).

This report by the Royal College of Surgeons is published just as the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust is implementing the centralisation of all acute general surgery and gastroenterology on to the St James’s University Hospital site.

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This centralisation combined with a complete transformation of how the acute general service is provided will already comply or surpass a number of these recommendations.

This new service allows a consultant surgeon and team to be completely free of elective duties, to concentrate on early senior diagnosis, operative intervention and post-operative management which should all contribute to a shorter length of stay and an improved outcome for our patients as described in your article on this report.

It is further enhanced by a second consultant team available to manage patients requiring subsequent urgent but not emergency surgery on dedicated operating lists.

We believe Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust is in a unique position with this new service with a 24/7 acute general surgical service able to provide parallel on-call rotas, allowing our patients expert access as necessary to appropriate upper or lower abdominal surgery consultants and their teams.

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A lead clinician with specific responsibility to this service will monitor these changes and assist us to become fully compliant well within the two-year timeframe mentioned in this report.

This report endorses many of the changes that our clinical and managerial teams have been engineering over the last year. We believe these changes are the essence of this excellent report and we will endeavour to address the remaining issues as a priority.

From: Keith Chapman, Custance Walk, York.

READING and listening to the media coverage on medical services that may not in the future be covered by the NHS and those will have to pay privately (Yorkshire Post, October 6).

Could this be the beginning of a new medical insurance policy?