Dual hybrid suite 'a first' for the UK

A new 6.4 million pounds sterling dual hybrid endovascular theatre suite at the Manchester Royal Infirmary (MRI), which the Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CMFT) says will 'transform the treatment of patients undergoing minimally invasive vascular and cardiac procedures', has recently come into operation. As HEJ editor, Jonathan Baillie, discovered, when he met, a few weeks before its completion, with one of the vascular surgeons who championed it, and the Trust's associate director for Surgical Services, who wrote the business case, the surgical suite makes the MRI the UK's first hospital equipped with two adjacent full hybrid theatres utilising a robotic imaging system, with a fully flexible, synchronised operating table.