Surgical tool ‘crisis’ facing NHS

Missing, broken or dirty surgical tools are leading to operations being cancelled in hospitals across the country, research suggests.

Doctors from across the county have faced problems due to a lack of surgical tools, research from the Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) indicates.

According to the news provider, the problems have become worse since private firms began to take control of cleaning duties.

Richard Ramsden, a spokesperson for the RCS, told the BBC: “I think we feel an intense sense of frustration and anger ourselves at the moment when we have to cancel an operation or make do with instruments that are just not quite as good as they should be.”

The problems stem from the moving of sterilisation services away from hospitals to off-site premises run by private firms, surgeons believe.

But a spokesperson for the Department of Health argued that the ongoing investment in improving decontamination services would lead to higher standards in the long-run.

The findings from this study are enough to warrant a reassessment of what the NHS needs, said Professor Ramsden in a statement.