Published 21 December 2022
Kent and Canterbury Hospital (K&C) will become the county’s specialist centre for inpatient vascular surgery next year, following approval by NHS commissioners, provider trusts and Kent and Medway’s health scrutiny committee.
Vascular services reconstruct, unblock or bypass arteries and are often one-off specialist procedures to reduce the risk of sudden death or amputation and prevent stroke.
A public consultation was held earlier this year on a proposal to create a single centre for inpatient vascular surgery in Kent and Medway, bringing together the inpatient services at K&C and Medway Maritime Hospital.
Evidence shows that patients who need vascular treatment receive better care and have a better chance of survival when they are treated by a team of vascular surgeons, interventional radiologists, nurses and therapists, who treat large number of these patients.
Feedback from the consultation showed a clear mandate for change and broad support for the establishment of a single centre for inpatient surgery, while ensuring much of the patient’s care remained as local as possible.
Outpatient appointments and diagnostic tests will continue at patients’ local hospitals in Ashford, Canterbury, Margate, Maidstone, and Medway. Day surgery will continue at Canterbury and Medway hospitals.
Vascular patients will also benefit from the new interventional radiology suite that opened at K&C in May, with a second suite opening early next year, which provide minimally invasive image-guided procedures to treat patients with vascular and other diseases.
The inpatient vascular service will transition to K&C from Medway in a phased way early next year, so that by April, all patients requiring inpatient vascular treatment will be cared for at K&C.
