A BRADFORD hospital consultant who is “honoured” to be training surgeons in robotic-assisted surgery believes a centre for excellence could be created in the city.

Raj Singh’s new role will see him training surgeons across the UK and Europe in the use of state-of-the-art robotics. 

“My ultimate dream is to create a Bradford robotic-assisted surgery centre which is multi-specialty and world class,” said Mr Singh, who is a consultant uro-oncologist and urological surgeon at Bradford Royal Infirmary.

“We have the expertise, so this is definitely achievable. There is no doubt about it - the future of all surgery is robotics.”

The teaching will be carried out at Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, (BTHFT), which pioneered robotic-assisted urological cancer surgery in Yorkshire with its first ‘robot’ back in 2012.

Mr Singh is a proctor, or mentor, for Intuitive Surgical, manufacturer of the revolutionary da Vinci robotic-assisted surgical systems used at Bradford Royal Infirmary.

“It’s quite an honour to be asked,” said Mr Singh, who becomes the only proctor for urology in Yorkshire, proctoring prostate, bladder and kidney surgeries, and one of only a handful of Intuitive surgical proctors across the country.

Bradford has now become one of the highest-volume robotic-assisted urological centres in the north of England, with surgeons having conducted close to 3,000 surgical procedures. Mr Singh himself has carried out more than 1,000 surgeries using the da Vinci systems.

“At BTHFT, I’ll be training and upskilling surgeon colleagues to use the da Vinci robotic systems but I will also be training surgeons from other hospitals who will come to Bradford to observe the robotic surgical systems in action and learn their skills here,” he said.

 The Trust now has two da Vinci robotic-assisted surgical systems; the original 2012 ‘robot’ was upgraded with the most up-to-date £1.7 million da Vinci Xi system in April 2022, before the second ‘robot’ was installed in January 2023. At the same time, the Trust took delivery of a ‘dual console’ which enables the training of new surgeons. 

Mr Singh added: “Having two da Vinci Xi ‘robots’ means that a wider variety of cancer surgeries can now be operated on. As well as urological (prostate, bladder, kidney) and head and neck cancer surgeries, patients are also able to undergo robotic-assisted surgery for a variety of colorectal procedures, bowel and gynaecological cancers as well as hernia repair, upper and lower GI and gynaecological surgeries.

“At BTHFT we have a team of 15 robotics-trained surgeons, and we are working hard to get back to the levels of robotic-assisted surgery that we were carrying out prior to the pandemic - and we are almost there.”