Northern Ireland

Surgeon calls for 'time critical' cancer operations to be protected 'at all costs' following cancellations in Belfast trust

Mr Mark Taylor, NI director of the Royal College of Surgeons (England)
Mr Mark Taylor, NI director of the Royal College of Surgeons (England) Mr Mark Taylor, NI director of the Royal College of Surgeons (England)

A LEADING surgeon has warned that "time critical" operations must be protected "at all costs" after the Belfast trust cancelled some cancer procedures due to Covid pressures.

Mark Taylor said lessons needed to be learned from previous surges by health service management and called for 'surgery hubs' to be created to treat non-Covid patients requiring potentially life-saving operations.

The NI Director of the Royal College of Surgeons, who works in the Belfast trust, said the system was on a "knife edge" in this latest wave due to unprecedented staff shortages, particularly in nursing with with many off self-isolating or "burnt out".

But he said the answer was not to "shut down things" because "we pay for that".

The Belfast trust released a statement yesterday confirming it had "regrettably" cancelled some cancer related procedures.

A spokeswoman did not state how many patients were affected but said it is currently working to reschedule the procedures "as soon as possible".

"Covid-19 admissions continuing to rise has put increasing pressures on hospitals, which led to the trust taking the extremely difficult decision to cancel surgeries in order to expand our support teams caring for Covid-19 patients," she added.

"We do not underestimate the anxiety and distress this causes patients and families affected and we sincerely apologise for this."

Mr Taylor said while the pressures currently facing the health service are akin to winter, there has to be "as much effort given to sustaining time critical surgery as there is to dealing with the Covid pandemic".

"When we go into the quieter periods we have to deal the fallout from the cancellation of cases," he said.

When asked to comment directly on the decision taken by the Belfast trust in relation to cancer procedures, the surgeon said the redeployment of certain staff - such as theatre nurses to Covid ICU - must be examined.

"If surgery is being cancelled, we still would ask that the system looks at surgical hubs to protect surgery at all costs. Cancelling operating lists isn't the straightforward answer - we would also ask about regional joined-up thinking. Are there other centres where patients can get critical care dependent surgery done?" Mr Taylor said.

"The question is what do we do differently this time. One of the examples I've heard from some of the trusts is that it's not all theatre nurses going back in to help in ICU.

"There are nurses of all backgrounds. It’s a false economy to think you can switch it all off and not see the consequences in GPs, EDs and hospital waiting lists.

"If you can’t do cancer operations due to downturned staff and fewer ICU beds, then what options are we looking at to ensure that these operations are done as quickly as possible.

"One thing I can tell you is that every surgeon wants to operate, every nurse wants to be in a theatre to operate and the redeployment constantly to prop up Covid ICU care takes them away for the job they do daily and makes our waiting lists worse - and makes those critical operations more time dependent."