Read about our pioneering study with South Tees NHS Foundation Trust here.
Read about our pioneering study with South Tees NHS Foundation Trust here.
This week, we had the pleasure of speaking with Professor Gerard Danjoux, an expert in perioperative care.
Professor Danjoux is a Consultant Anaesthetist at South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and serves as our Perioperative Advisor at Surgery Hero.
As well as being a Consultant in Anaesthesia at South Tees Hospitals, I’m also the departments academic lead and an Honorary Professor at Hull York Medical School and Teesside University. Additionally, I serve as the Vice-President for the International Prehabilitation and Perioperative Exercise Testing Society (iPOETTS.org), and have contributed to national initiatives in perioperative medicine through the Royal College of Anaesthetists.
My main clinical interest is in assessing and preparing patients for high-risk surgery and supporting them to achieve the best possible outcome. Academically, I focus on prehabilitation and digital innovations to support surgical preparation. Since 2005, I have been involved in research to improve patients’ fitness and readiness for surgery, pioneering research internationally in this area. Over the last few years, I have extended this interest to developing digital solutions and complemented my research by implementing real-life programmes to support patients before surgery.
This led to the development of Prepwell in 2018, the UK’s first community-based prehabilitation service. Following the onset of Covid-19, there was a need for remote prehabilitation support for patients, which resulted in our partnership with Surgery Hero.
We have now developed a region-wide programme in the North-East and North Cumbria called Waiting Well which supports the physical, mental and social health of patients before surgery. Waiting Well is ICB-funded and has a focus on supporting patients from the most deprived areas as part of a levelling-up strategy in perioperative care. In South Tees we have a dynamic hybrid programme offering patients the choice of face-to-face or digital support through Surgery Hero. In the first 12 months we have achieved some outstanding results, and our team was recently shortlisted for the national HSJ Digital Healthcare Awards finals, a real accolade to our collaborative work.
Perioperative care encompasses patient support from the moment of contemplation of surgery in primary care through to full recovery after an operation. Effective perioperative care is patient-centred, involves multidisciplinary teams, and aims to improve patient outcomes, experience, satisfaction, and overall health. This is where prehabilitation initiatives can bring real added value to the way we care for patients.
Prehabilitation programmes have demonstrated significant benefits to both patients and healthcare systems.
Patients experience improved satisfaction, quality of life, fitness, and health outcomes when they are supported with prehabilitation programmes before surgery. Our own work, and research from elsewhere has shown patients can improve their quality of life by 100% in 6-8 weeks before surgery which is pretty amazing to see. Patient’s feel more supported and feedback is excellent, so what’s not to like! Encouragingly we are seeing that results are as good with digital support as with face-to-face programmes.
Complications and hospital length of stay are also significantly reduced meaning people return to their normal level of independence and function more quickly after surgery. This demonstrates clear financial savings to our healthcare systems and society in general. Our own work has shown that digital patient support is cheaper, equally effective and more readily scalable with 1 in 2 patients preferring the flexibility of this option.
With surgery as a ‘teachable moment’ for behaviour change prehabilitation programmes also have potential to enhance longer-term population health, offering multifaceted benefits.
The future of perioperative care is promising, especially with advancements in digital and remote healthcare, including the use of Artificial Intelligence. This will enable us to work in a more efficient and smarter way within the NHS, extending the reach to support patients well beyond its current limits. We must remember however on this journey to cater for a range of patient needs and provide a range of options for inclusivity.
One of my key hopes for the future is increased collaboration among healthcare teams from different sectors, something that we have effectively achieved in our projects at South Tees. Moving away from the traditional silos of healthcare and working together as equal partners, with the patient at the centre. This collaboration should extend beyond hospitals to include public health and primary care, also supported by industry and voluntary sector partnerships. Services like Surgery Hero play a crucial role in this model, helping us meet patient needs that extend beyond traditional medical care and ensuring a more holistic approach to health and well-being.
It’s a really exciting time to be in perioperative care despite the challenges our health service is facing. I’ve worked in the NHS for 35 years and I still find it incredibly rewarding to be at the forefront of perioperative care and to be able to make a difference to the patients we care for day-to-day.