The purchase of advanced medical equipment improves diagnosis and treatment, helping to ensure patients receive excellent care and the best possible outcomes.
The purchase of advanced medical equipment improves diagnosis and treatment, helping to ensure patients receive excellent care and the best possible outcomes.
Head and neck cancers account for approximately 4% of all cancers and despite advances in technology and approach, five-year survival rates are poor in the UK, due to delays in diagnosis and treatment.
The multi-disciplinary head and neck cancer team at Kingston Hospital work with regional partners to diagnose patients as early as possible and expedite cancer treatment at specialist cancer centres. A substantial increase in demand, caused by a combination of service reorganisation in South West London and an ageing population, has highlighted the urgent need for additional specialist diagnostic equipment.
While funding has now been secured for four ultrasound machines, an intraoperative nerve monitor and a stroboscopy system, we are also seeking to acquire an ENT navigation system. For patients with a suspected sino-nasal neoplasm (a growth in, around or behind the nose) requiring surgical biopsy to determine whether it is cancerous, this specialist equipment would enable the surgeon to more easily and quickly navigate around critical structures avoiding accidental injury and its subsequent life changing impacts; while reducing the length of post operative hospital stay
Together the acquisition of all of these equipment items will help reduce the length of time for diagnosis, while ensuring Kingston Hospital achieves the 28-day faster diagnosis standard and national 31 day waiting time for treatment target for its head and neck patients, increasing the number of patients living for five years or more following a cancer diagnosis. They will also improve health outcomes in terms of swallowing, speech and breathing for those patients undergoing surgical biopsy or when recovering from radiotherapy for laryngeal cancer, while helping deliver more efficient services.
The management of chronic diseases, such as glaucoma and age-related macular degeneration, requires regular follow-up for the duration of a patient’s life. In an ageing population this is putting unprecedented demand on existing clinical services at Kingston Hospital.
After celebrating the opening of the Nadhmi Auchi Retina Centre last November to help create the additional space needed to meet the growing demand, the ophthalmology service is committed to acquiring specialist imaging equipment to significantly increase its scanning capacity. The funding has already been secured to acquire a second ultra-widefield retinal imaging system and nearly £90,000 has been committed to acquire an additional multimodal imaging platform. This specialist equipment combines several advanced imaging technologies to provide detailed visualisation of the eye, particularly the retina and optic nerve. Its key features are crucial to diagnosing and monitoring a number of conditions at the back of the eye, including age-related macular degeneration (AMD), diabetic retinopathy, inflammatory diseases (uveitis), choroidal tumours and other retinal vascular diseases.
The group of muscles that form the anal sphincter can be torn or damaged during childbirth in up to 6% of women having a vaginal delivery, which can lead to long term consequences. Anorectal manometry has been shown to identify more women with sphincter function impairment than is currently possible with the endoanal ultrasound that is used at Kingston Hospital’s pelvic floor clinic. Acquiring a manometry machine will help identify those women that are affected, ensuring they receive appropriate counselling with regards to their management of postnatal faecal incontinence and delivery in subsequent pregnancies.
To make a donation to support any of these projects, please click here