Doors open at Daisy Hill Hospital theatres!

A total of 80 students, preregistered and registered nurses got a behind the scenes insight to surgical nursing in Theatres and Endoscopy on Saturday 4th November. The visit allowed them to visit both general and endoscopy theatres and the recovery area on level one in Daisy Hill Hospital.

They heard first hand from nurses working in the department, received a guided tour of the department and learned about the roles within Theatres and Endoscopy, Anaesthetics, Theatre scrub role and circulating role, Endoscopy Nursing and Recovery nursing.

They also got a hands on approach and tried activities like ‘scrubbing, gowning and gloving, the handling of instrumentation used in surgery, intubation and patient monitoring. Daisy Hill Y, along with two dedicated Endoscopy rooms and a paediatric theatre on level six.

The hospital has been appointed as a regional elective overnight stay centre and the team have been working hard to recruit and rebuild planned surgery following a downturn in activity due to the pandemic and ongoing pressures on medical beds.

From 1st January 2023 to 31st October 2023, the team have been gradually increasing their theatre lists. They have looked after 1700 elective patients, 199 of these staying overnight. From this week, they are delighted to run 25 elective theatre sessions each week which will be up to 77 patients who are waiting on a procedure.

The endoscopy service in Daisy Hill Hospital accommodates approximately 100 day case patients a week, as well as providing the inpatient endoscopy requirements for patients in the hospital.

Director of Surgery and Clinical Services for the Southern Trust, Cathrine Reid, said: “With excellent surgical facilities at Daisy Hill and following investment in training and equipment, we can undertake most specialties including ENT, general surgery and dental for adults and children, gynaecology and most recently have started breast and urology. We have a really enthusiastic and committed theatre team, continually striving to improve and develop services and keen to work with colleagues regionally, to tackle unacceptable waiting lists across Northern Ireland.

“With such a busy schedule, it is a credit to our theatre staff and practice education team who managed to pull out all the stops to organise this brilliant event. This is the first time that we have organised an interactive experience like this within our theatres. With all sessions booked out so quickly, we are absolutely delighted with the response. Theatres is a very exciting nursing environment, so there is no better way than actually seeing and getting a real feel for it yourself, to decide if this is a career for you. Feedback on the day was fantastic from everyone who attended, we hope they are encouraged to pursue a career in surgical nursing and that we will hopefully be welcoming some of them to our service in the future.”

Following the success of the day, the team are planning to host future events at Craigavon Area and South Tyrone hospitals.

The Trust is continually recruiting for nurses right across our services and would love to hear from anyone interested in joining their team.