Patients in Bradford are putting themselves in the hands of a new £2 million surgical robot.

Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has become only the second centre in the region to buy the revolutionary Da Vinci robot to perform critical operations on its patients.

Consultant urological surgeon Sanjai Addla is one of the Foundation Trust’s surgeons who have been trained to use robotic surgery at Bradford Royal Infirmary . The machine will initially be used to perform robotic prostatectomies which will enable men to resume normal lives despite having had prostate cancer.

Mr Addla said: “This is a major and exciting advancement for urological cancer surgery here in Bradford. The city has a high rate of late presentation for prostate cancer – which is largely due to widespread ignorance about the disease and the availability of screening among our male population – so this machine will enable the Foundation Trust to be one of the few centres in the north of England to offer this gold-standard treatment for prostate cancer patients.

”Robotic surgery has huge benefits for the NHS, its patients and the wider community as surgery is faster, simpler, more cost-effective, more precise, cuts down on bed-blocking and, for patients, recovery times are halved when compared to more traditional forms of open or laparoscopic surgery. Patients will be back on their feet more quickly and back at work sooner after major procedures.”

The new robot – which was partly funded by a £200,000 donation from the Sovereign Health Charitable Trust – allows for high precision surgery where the patient is ‘docked’ within the machine. The operation is then carried out with the help of four robotic arms that are inserted into the patient’s body through tiny incisions.

While the robot will be used for urological cancer treatment initially, elsewhere the machine is used for other types of surgery, including colorectal, heart and gynaecological operations, and there are plans to expand its use to other specialties in Bradford in the future.

During a procedure, Mr Addla sits at the robot’s computer console and performs the operation by looking through a large microscope which offers a clear 3D close-up view of the patient’s organs, nerves, blood vessels and muscles. In theory, he doesn’t even have to be in the same room.

Mr Addla’s colleague, consultant urological surgeon Narasimhan Ragavan, who is also trained in using the Da Vinci robot said: “This type of futuristic surgery is really the start of things to come for the NHS.”

The first operations took place successfully in Bradford at the end of July.