College lecturer Madelaine Moreland has become the 100,000th NHS patient to be treated on a mobile operating theatre.
The unit is part of the national fleet of 36 mobile theatres, endoscopy suites, day wards and outpatient facilities operated by Nuffield Health Mobile Services (the trading name of Vanguard Healthcare Solutions).
Madelaine Moreland, who lived in Avening, near Stroud in Gloucestershire until August, is programme leader for Vocational Skills at Wiltshire College, Chippenham. Her procedure was undertaken on 20 November in the mobile unit based on the Focus / DoItAll car park on Dudbridge Hill, Stroud.
On 10 December Rob Graham, general manager (Theatres) for Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust joined Ian Gillespie (far left), Nuffield Health Mobile Services MD, to make a presentation to Mrs Moreland (second from left) on the unit (picture also shows Maggie Martin, Stroud Hospital Matron and operational development manager).
Ian Gillespie explained that the first NHS patient to have an operation on a mobile theatre had been in Bury St. Edmunds, on 4 April, 2000, adding: “This is a big moment for us as an organisation, but also a key milestone for the NHS, which is learning to use mobile services in an imaginative way, creating flexibility in how they deliver healthcare to patients.”
