COVID-19 considerations

Patient Safety

COVID-19 is still impacting NHS and private healthcare in the UK and EU. We are monitoring the situation.

Naturally, we must observe all reasonable measures to reduce the chance of infection.

To put patients' concerns to rest, the protocols being developed by the RCS and equivalent organisations abroad require strong separation of COVID-19 positive patient treatment areas, testing, and many other safeguards. We will only refer to clinics that have demonstrated adherence to international standards.

Timing

For the moment, elective surgery is practically at a standstill, for many obvious reasons.

Elective surgery in UK will continue to be impacted for some time, according the Royal College of Surgeons, on April 29th : "A significant backlog of surgical work is being created in addition to those patients on waiting lists before the present crisis. Retaining an expanded workforce and resources to deal with all of these patients is essential, but illness, fatigue and social issues among healthcare workers all threaten the necessary increase in surgical activity that is needed."

We are in touch with providers in several countries, seeking the first opportunity for patients to be treated, and we will embrace the criteria developed by the RCS, and other EU governments.

This useful international study gives an overview of COVID-19 issues, and provides starting points for deeper searches.

In the meantime, we continue to collect patient contact details, advise potential patients, and accept pre-operative questionnaires. Our goal is to hasten the flow of treatment, once elective surgery is again possible. We are exploring ways, by streamlining our own process, and packaging data appropriately, of gaining the attention of leading surgeons who may be limited by shortage of their own local patients due to factors in their own healthcare systems.