100th screening AAA
The North East program has been around since 2010 and really the main aim of the screening program is to reduce deaths in men aged 65 and above by fifty percent from ruptured aneurysms. So we found actually men coming along for screening, the quicker we can get them in for an operation like Bob here, the quicker they recover and get back to normal life.
Since the program started we have seen a steady increase in a number of screened aneurysms that have been coming through the system and it does have an effect on the service and a provision that we provide.
We’re at over 50,000 scans now which is really quite exciting and then the hundredth referral so we’ve got two major milestones under the belt in really quite a short space of time for the screening program so and we’re really pleased that Bob is looking so well.
If anything’s free there now I’ll go along with volunteer whatever sort of screening it is you know, well man clinic and bowel tests and this was just another one to me so nothing to lose I thought let’s go see what it’s all about and popped along I mean it only takes an hour in total so why not, and lo and behold they found one.
I think we’ve just seen today why you should attend you come along you’ll get screened if you don’t have an aneurysm great and there’s nothing else if you do have an aneurysm it’s small we can keep an eye on it and if it’s big enough and it’s reached that threshold then we will investigate you and we will then treat the aneurysm if appropriate and I think Mr Hunt is a very good example of why people should attend and have their abdomen screened for an aneurysm.
I mean I can’t speak highly enough about the team the anaesthetists, the nurses on the ward you know the people at the scanning absolutely everyone was absolutely superb.