King’s College Hospital, London - United Kingdom

History

King’s College Hospital is an acute care facility in London, UK which was first opened in 1840. I t is steeped in medical history and, for example, Joseph Lister the Pioneer of aseptic surgery performed the first major elective surgery under strict antiseptic conditions in 1877. He helped propel the hospital to have a surgical unit which became one of the top facilities of it’s kind in the world.

King’s College Hospital was granted Teaching Hospital status in 1948. A purpose-built medical education centre, the Weston Education Centre, was built in 1997 and contains a medical library as well as hosting conferences, symposia, and professional training events as well as containing public access computer rooms for students. In 1998 King’s College School of Medicine and Dentistry merged with the United Medical and Dental Schools (UMDS) of Guy’s and St. Thomas’s Hospital to form Guy’s, King’s and St Thomas’s School of Medicine.King’s Liver Unit is the largest and most comprehensive service of its kind in the world, with a strong interest in pediatric liver cancers. King’s also operates the largest liver transplantation programme in Europe.

There is a great deal of expertise within King’s Department of Neurology. There is a large outpatient movement disorder clinic, specialising in multidisciplinary team management of Parkinson’s disease, dystonia, progressive supranuclear palsy, and related diseases. It is one of only five centres in Europe designated a "Centre of Excellence" by the National Parkinson Foundation.

Challenge

King’s Hospital has over 1,000 beds and the Hospital runs extremely busy Emergency and Outpatient Departments. Consequently, quality , reliability, and flexibility are key criteria for all equipment used by the Hospital. For Day Surgery procedures it is crucial to ensure safe and speedy transfer of patients to the Surgery Dept and around the Hospital. In addition, it is vitally important that equipment should be user-friendly and easy for the Hospital personnel to use. Director of Emergency Services at the Hospital, Mr. Philip Child, is very pleased with the MERIVAARA Rapido Operating Table.

" We can easily transfer our patients from the Outpatient Dept to Surgery, carry out the operation and transfer the patient back to the post-operative ward all using the one single piece of equipment. It maximises the comfort of the patient and increases the efficiency of our Hospital as the Rapido is both a Trolley and a very versatile Operating Table all in one. In addition, they are very reliable and durable – as they would need to be - operating in our very busy Emergency Department ".