TEAMS of NHS surgeons perform hundreds of operations every day in Musgrove Park Hospital, Taunton, but it is not just the larger hospitals where patients can receive surgery.

Somerset NHS Foundation Trust’s Minehead Community Hospitals also has state-of-the-art operating theatres which are regularly used for certain procedures using local anaesthetic.

Minehead Hospital theatre suite manager Tessa Sanford said she was proud to lead such a close knit team who were determined to give as many people as possible an opportunity to have surgery in their local hospital.

Ms Sanford said: “We are a very small team at Minehead, and as we are in such a remote location compared with the rest of Somerset, we tend to rely heavily on colleagues who have retired and want to return on the staff bank.

“We are very glad to have them, that is for sure.

“We also have a student currently training with us to become a registered nurse, with education something that we are really keen on promoting here.

“That is definitely the future for us even though we are a small team in comparison to the operating theatres at Musgrove Park.

“In many ways, we are a very new team, as there have been a lot of changes in our workforce, and this has coincided with us increasing the use of our theatres from two-and-a-half days a week, up to almost five days.

“We have also recently recruited extra theatre colleagues, which is great news.

“We want to increase this even further, but, of course, we need more colleagues in post to be able to achieve this, particularly scrub nurses, but we are very hopeful in the next wave of recruitment.

“All the surgery we do here has to be under local anaesthetic, and one of the many things our team is good at is talking to patients about that and allaying their fears, because obviously we cannot offer general anaesthetic here as we are too far from the nearest acute hospital.

“But we can offer a range of day surgeries, including dermatology, maxillofacial for skin surgery, urology screening, podiatric surgery, ocular plastic surgery, as well as hand surgery, which we are hoping to extend in the coming months.

“These satellite theatres that we have at Minehead help take the pressure off our acute hospitals, as we are very much freeing up space for those more serious and critical surgeries.

“There is a real appetite in the local community to promote the hospital and everything provided from here, too.

“Our amazing league of friends have been doing an excellent job of raising awareness of the services we offer.”

Minehead operating theatres staff nurse Allyson Wakeham said: “For some of our more elderly patients a trip to Taunton can be really daunting, so it is great that we can offer them surgery near where they live, though it is obviously not possible for all surgeries.

“Access to the hospital is so much easier, and our patients are always telling us how it is so easy to get here, and that they feel more comfortable in the smaller environment.

“It is great for relatives, too, as they can bring their dogs with them and go for a nice walk near the hospital grounds, and not having to worry about parking.

“The feedback we get from patients as we take them to the door is really lovely to hear, and in fact a recent patient admitted to me that they were initially apprehensive, but they now want to come here again as a priority if they need surgery.

“I have only ever heard positive things from patients about our theatres and they are often surprised when we first bring them into the theatre suite.

“I would certainly come here.”

Ms Wakeham said she really enjoys working at Minehead Hospital, and said it felt like there was a real team spirit.

She said: “We are like a little family in many ways, although that does mean we feel it more if a colleague is on annual leave or off sick, of course, as we have less resilience than Musgrove Park because we cannot borrow colleagues from another theatre, for example.

“Our surgeons tend to come from Musgrove, with the odd one coming from further afield, and they often bring trainee surgeons with them.

“We have only ever had positive feedback from them about our theatres.

“With the day surgery centre at Musgrove only last year celebrating its 30th birthday, it is fair to say that we are very much a branch of that centre, and we are really proud of what we are able to achieve.”