Over the last two decades, the Sharoe Green Unit has become a facility to be proud of – one that stands comparison with any in the country.
Building a new maternity unit within an acute hospital has only enhanced the service, and, of course, it is not only about antenatal, birth and postnatal care.
Bringing everything on to one site has enabled cross speciality collaboration, especially for expectant mothers – the Trust are the only provider in the North West to have co-located NICU and Adult Critical Care/Oncology/Neurosurgery and Interventional Radiology all on one site.
Pierre Martin-Hirsch is now Research Medical Director with the Trust and is a Consultant Gynaecological Oncologist / Gynaecologist.
He was involved in the Development of Gynaecological Research, setting up a research programme, adding prestige to the unit and Trust.
Pierre was fundamental in the Trust implementing the DaVinci Xi robotic surgeon for gynae cancer in 2017, which can improve outcomes for patients with cancer.
The system was funded in the most part by Rosemere Cancer Foundation, with the charity contributing £1.25m.
Pierre explained: “I was the regional gynae oncologist but I’m no longer in the unit, I’m the research medical director for the Trust, but you can see what we’ve achieved - we’ve gone from zero to being credible regionally and nationally.
“It shows the development in gynae oncology in the Sharoe Green Unit - the tertiary gynae oncology service didn’t exist until around 2001 - that has all developed within the new unit.
“Liverpool, Manchester and Lancashire and South Cumbria all have a tertiary gynae oncology service, so we are the service for Blackpool, Morecambe Bay, East Lancashire, so we do all the more complicated, rarer operations.”
The move to the main hospital building has been a huge benefit: “We’re onsite where a lot of other specialities are now - we didn’t have that in the old Sharoe Green, you were limited in what you could do there, and occasionally when we had problems, we had to call colorectal surgeons over, which was difficult to do.
“You were stood at the operating table waiting for help, or occasionally you had to go over to ITU in an ambulance after you’d just operated on a patient. If we need help now, it’s so much easier being onsite.”
The progress the unit has made makes the environment one where people want to come to work in: “We have had academic trainees with us, who have come back here to be consultants, which is great. They are the future.
“It proves if you have all the ingredients and a good working atmosphere, things like the robot innovation mean that people want to work in your unit.”
Colleague Sandra Murray, a Macmillan Gynae Oncology Clinical Nurse Specialist, agrees.
Sandra qualified in 1988, as a staff nurse on gynae, before getting a specialist nursing role at the turn of the Millennium: “It’s changed so much, for the better, the number of patients we treat now as a cancer centre, with Rosemere here as well. Our team has developed so much now, patients get so much more than they did then, and treatments have improved.”
Nick Wood, like Pierre, a Consultant Gynaecological Oncologist, added: “Being onsite with all the specialties around makes a big difference.
“The model of a standalone unit, for the gynae cancer service, is not really sustainable, and having a maternity unit alongside an acute hospital is better in my view. All those things are really important, and you couldn’t have done that down the road.
“It was certainly a good thing to come here. You have joint procedures, general surgeons operating with gynaecologists, urologists, and ourselves over in main theatres as well. Having that on site is good practice.”
