NHS Golden Jubilee has performed 1,000 robotic orthopaedic joint replacement procedures as the national Board continues to provide pioneering treatment to support patients across Scotland waiting for hip and knee replacements.
In November 2019, the orthopaedic team marked a Scottish first by using a Mako robot for routine total and partial knee replacement surgery, and have continued at a rapid pace to provide the highest possible standard of care for 1,000 patients across the country.
Compared to non-robotic surgery, NHS Golden Jubilee patients are benefitting from greater implant accuracy, reduced soft tissue damage and less blood loss.
Robotic surgery also has the potential to have significant long term benefits to patients and the NHS as a whole, by reducing the likelihood of patients requiring repeat joint replacements in later life, with the aim of saving millions for NHS Scotland in future years.
Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon Christopher Gee, said: “It's a huge delight to see that we've reached the 1,000th patient milestone and this is an accomplishment of which we should all be very proud.
“This has been a real team effort, from providing more preoperative imaging in radiography to allow us to plan the cases, to the Patient Coordination Centre organising the appointments, the theatre teams learning new equipment all the way to the surgeons carrying out the procedures.
“Having surgery is a huge moment in a patient’s life and we want to give them the best possible chance of a good outcome. A key factor in this is making sure the implants are put in as accurately as possible, ensuring they last as long as possible.
“With this increased accuracy and improved outcomes associated with robotic surgery, the hope is that the joint only needs to be replaced once in a patient’s lifetime.
“While there is of course always the potential of needing further surgery in the future, with this pioneering technology becoming more common and popular among patients, our aim is that this translates to long term and wide spread improved quality of life for patients across Scotland.”
The Golden Jubilee University National Hospital, which treats patients from across the country, is playing a big part in helping NHS Scotland’s waiting times recovery. Based in Clydebank, the Golden Jubilee is one of Europe’s largest elective orthopaedic centres, and in 2021-22 carried out over 30% of all elective hip and knee replacements in NHS Scotland.
Patient John Wishart, 80, from Houston in Renfrewshire, had a partial knee replacement done with the aid of a Stryker Mako robot on 2 December, the day when the 1,000th patient milestone was reached.
John said: “The pain over the past couple of years has been horrendous, to the point that around last Christmas time I could hardly sleep, so I should get to enjoy Christmas this year without that pain.
“I did a lot of exercise in the gym with a lot of cardio work to prepare for my operation and the physiotherapist has told me that has really helped me post-op, because I don’t need a frame and can get around on sticks at the moment.
“Now that I’ve had this procedure at the Golden Jubilee, I’m looking forward to a full recovery and getting back to the gym.”
NHS Golden Jubilee Medical Director, Dr Mark MacGregor, said: “It is testament to the hard work and dedication of all the teams involved that we have reached this milestone of treating 1,000 patients with cutting edge robotic technology.
“We now have 5 robots as part of our robotics programme here at NHS Golden Jubilee for orthopaedics, lung cancer, colorectal and other procedures.
“By collaborating with health boards from all across the NHSScotland, this not only has huge benefits for patients all around the country, but is providing vital support to help tackle waiting lists both now and in the future.”
Transcript
The NHS Golden Jubilee Orthopaedic Department has a long history of success with computer assisted orthopaedic surgery, starting initially with computer navigated joint replacements.
We've now expanded to have a very successful robotics programme.
To achieve this, it's been really a huge amount of effort from the whole team, and it's really a huge delight to see that we've reached the 1000 milestone.
You know, from everything from explaining what is involved to the patients, to them having more preoperative imaging to allow us to plan the cases, to the booking team, to organise the cases in an appropriate way to the theatre teams learning the new equipment and to the surgeons involved as well.
It's been a real team effort and one that I think the whole wider department should be very proud of.
There are a number of reasons why we've always been interested in computer assisted orthopaedic surgery, and now particularly we're talking about robotics today.
And really it comes from a wish to try and give our patients the best possible outcomes from their joint replacement surgery.
These are huge moments in patients lives and major operations and while we do a huge number of them here at the Jubilee for each patient, we want to give them the best possible chance of putting the implants in as accurately as possible so that they last as long as possible, which gives them that improved quality of life for the long term.
The ideal is that a patient only needs their joint replaced once.
We are aware that there's always the potential that they may need further surgery in the future and that's something we always discuss with patients.
But what we hope with robotics and computer assisted orthopaedic surgery today with the MAKO, for example, is that we can be more accurate and that will translate into long term improved survivorship of implants for patients really.
And that's what this all comes down to, it’s being able to provide the patients with the best possible care.
