After visiting the Elective Surgical Hub at King George Hospital (KGH), Wes Streeting - one of our MPs – described our work as “ground-breaking and nationally leading” and spoke of how the results we are seeing are “unlike anywhere else in the country”.

The MP for Ilford North and Shadow Health and Social Care Secretary went on:

How do we take what you’ve done elsewhere? It’s not often at the moment, with all the challenges that we see in the NHS, that you go into wards where people are not only really proud of the work they do individually but also really proud of the collective impact you’re making, despite all those challenges.

Mr Streeting was accompanied by Jas Athwal, the Leader of Redbridge Borough Council, who spoke of how, as a local resident who’s used KGH many times, he was “truly inspired” by what he’d seen. He said:

The energy, knowledge and wisdom that comes out from all the people we’ve seen today is second to none. We know that healthcare in Redbridge and wider locality is in really good hands.

Watch Wes speaking to our staff on the visit below.

The pair heard from teams about how we’re leading the way nationally for innovative procedures including being the first in the country to offer a robotic colonoscopy procedure and one of the first to introduce robotic surgery in urogynaecology.

Our cancer team ran the first pilot in the country using clinical photography to diagnose oral cancer rather than waiting to assess a patient in person. These assessments can take weeks to be scheduled, once a referral has been made

The pilot has cut the time it takes to deliver a diagnosis and, in the process, has both speeded up treatment and reduced anxiety, with more than 60% of patients being told more quickly that they didn’t have cancer.

We’re also one of only two hospitals in the country to offer FIT (Faecal Immunochemical Test) in our A&E. FIT checks the level of blood present in a patient’s poo and can help detect colorectal cancers.

Colleagues shared with Wes Streeting and Jas Athwal our plans to enhance our performance through our new decontamination unit and with the building of two new theatres, as part of the expansion of the KGH Elective Surgical Hub.

Commenting on the visit, Thangadorai Amalesh, Clinical Group Director of Surgery, Critical Care and Anaesthetics, said:

It was great to hear such positive feedback. These achievements are all down to the hard work of our teams. We are constantly looking for new ways of cutting the time residents wait for their treatment.