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The NHS has carried out 3,000 operations on a new generation of high-tech mobile operating theatres.

NHS hospitals regularly act as host hospitals to the British-built units. There are currently three mobile theatres, developed at a cost of £1m each. A fourth unit will become available in the summer. The units, which include an anaesthetic room and recovery area, come complete with four experienced theatre nurses.

Using mobile theatres, which park close to main hospital buildings, means that patients are treated on NHS premises by NHS surgeons and anaesthetists. It is an alternative to using private hospitals and enables patients to have their operation without having to travel outside their area. Some hospitals are carrying out as many as 15 operations a day in them.

Precision Engineering

The units incorporate precision engineering techniques and are a world away from the popular conception of tented mobile surgical units popularised by MASH.

Some hospitals use the units for day surgery to create more space in their own operating theatres for major surgery cases. Others use the mobiles for intermediate procedures including general surgery, orthopaedics, gynaecology, urology, ENT and maxillo-facial. Some major and complex operations have also been carried out in these high-tech operating theatres.

The mobiles travel overnight to their destination and take just one hour to be ready for their first patient, the walls sliding out hydraulically to create a spacious operating environment for the surgical team.

More information available in Work Environment