Can robots like Roxy revolutionise cancer surgery in Scotland?

Back in surgery and Dr Burton’s operation has reached a delicate stage.

Lymph nodes are cut away, and, still inside the patient’s body, they are neatly put into a bag that will be removed by theatre nurses through the vagina.

Dr Burton says the robot is “fantastic” and has “massive advantages” over traditional open or keyhole surgery.

He says: “Robotic surgery gives you a really immersed close-up view, a really steady view, and has a 3D element to the vision which allows you do really complex tasks.”

He says higher obesity rates have been directly linked to an increase in gynaecological cancers and robotic assisted surgery enables surgeons to operate on patients who are so overweight that they would previously have been considered inoperable.

Dr Burton says that without doubt RAS has the potential to save money for the NHS.

“If we can get patients in hospital for less time, that frees up more beds for patients,” he says.

“So when you get a winter bed crisis, for example, we have more beds, we have more doctors and more nurses to actually deliver the care needed.”