The Robotic Surgery Taskforce at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh has established a robotic expert advisory group to consider issues around the implementation of robotic-assisted surgery in the UK. One important area highlighted during this effort is the development of a guidance document that facilitates the development of new robotic surgical services in the UK.
We have assembled a team of experts to formulate this guidance. This guidance represents a toolkit that highlights areas of best practice when developing robotic surgical services encompassing areas of clinical governance and training. You will notice that this document aims to include the multidisciplinary robotic teams and is generic (i.e. not specialty-specific) such that it will be widely applicable.
We hope this will provide a systematic approach to setting up robotic surgical services which will ensure safe adoption and development of such services in the UK.