19.06.12
New vascular service for Colchester
Colchester General Hospital will offer a new specialist vascular service from next month, to provide the most complex surgery for the area.
The service will cover the 750,000 population of east Suffolk, north east Essex and the Colne Valley and has been established by The Five Rivers Vascular Network, which consists of Colchester Hospital University NHS Foundation Trust, Ipswich Hospital NHS Trust and the three local PCTs.
Colchesterhas invested £1.5m for a specialist theatre and will provide a 14-bed inpatient unit for the service. Staff from Ipswich will travel toColchesterto perform some of the surgery.
Most vascular care will still be delivered by the local hospital, with only the most complex cases referred to Colchester, including abdominal aortic aneurysm repairs, of which a hospital must deliver at least 100 over three years to develop and maintain clinical expertise.
Mr Chris Backhouse, consultant vascular surgeon at Colchester, said: “The new service is a very positive development for the population of eastSuffolk, north east Essex and theColneValleybecause it will provide a gold standard level of care.
“The vascular surgeons at Ipswich and Colchester have worked together as a single team to establish this new centre because we believe it will result in even better clinical outcomes for patients. We are driven by clinical excellence and giving patients the best possible treatment and care.
“Clinical evidence shows that hospitals which perform greater numbers of complex vascular surgery have better patient outcomes, including significantly lower mortality. Although both hospitals have good outcomes already, we want to achieve even better results for our patients.”
The service will begin operation from July 9.
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