BACKGROUND
Warrington and Halton Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust manages two major hospital sites - Warrington Hospital which caters for emergency and complex surgical care and The Nightingale Building at Halton Hospital in Runcorn which is a centre of excellence for routine surgery.
The Trust also provides orthopaedic surgery services at the Captain Sir Tom Moore Building on the Halton site, which was so named to honour the centenarian whose amazing efforts raised over £30m for NHS charities during the Covid-19 pandemic.
APPROACH
Across both sites, theatre teams had been using lithotomy stirrups (including some models supplied by Anetic Aid) for positioning in a wide range of operations: as well as for traditional gynae procedures, they have found them ideal for both male and female patients undergoing kidney stone removal and laparoscopic (particularly cholecystectomy) and colorectal work including surgeries for bowl cancer.
In orthopaedics, stirrups are also used in safely positioning non-operative limbs such as during Dynamic Hip Screw procedures to repair fractured heads of femur.
The stirrups provide maximum surgical access, while ensuring the patient is protected from over extension of abductor muscles and potential nerve damage.
When existing models reached the end of their natural life (Anetic Aid had been maintaining them for 13 years, although many of the sets were considerably older) and could no longer be serviced or repaired, Head of Theatres Services, Digestive Diseases, Mark Rigby and his team turned again to Anetic Aid for a replacement.
OUTCOME
The Trust has purchased four sets of the latest version - the 'Finned Elite' Lift-Assist™ Lithotomy Stirrups and found they offer significant advantages.
Practitioners have found the new squeeze-grip handle mechanism even easier to operate, and this, in combination with a specially-designed 'fin'-shaped support at the knee, provides even greater control and manoeuvrability of the patients' limbs.