Surgical Robots
The Northern Health Science Alliance helped to identify the right clinical partners to test and validate new surgical robotic technology
Background
The NHSA was approached by a Singaporean medical technology company that has developed a robot for automated prostate biopsy sampling. It was asked to identify clinical partners across the North which had the right infrastructure to test and validate their technology within the NHS.
NHSA support
Thanks to the NHSA the company sat down with academics and clinical leaders from across eight city regions to discuss initial deployment and testing of their technology in a highly rigorous and research orientated clinical environment. Strong clinical connections were formed with Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and the Yorkshire & Humber Academic Health Science Network (AHSN). A health-economic evaluation of the technology, in parallel to the clinical evaluation, was proposed and the School of Health & Related Research (ScHARR) based within the University of Sheffield was tasked with integrating a health economic assessment into the clinical protocol.
Results
The NHSA was able to rapidly build a strong consortium of clinicians, centres and infrastructure for the company to work with. As a result the company’s technology will be evaluated within two NHS Trusts simultaneously, as well as producing the health economic data required for eventual adoption and recommendation by NICE. The trial of this technology is due to begin in 2017.