Vein Harvest Improvement

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PATIENTS at Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust’s Essex Cardiothoracic Centre (CTC) are benefiting from a less invasive way of moving veins form their leg to their heart.

The pilot scheme, known as endoscopic vein harvest (EVH), is a minimally invasive procedure for patients who are having a coronary artery bypass graft.

Veins are taken from a patient’s leg and are used to pump blood to the heart, with the patient now only needing two small incisions during the procedure, rather than open surgery, as was previously needed.

One of those patients who has benefitted is David Simms, 78, from Hatfield Peverel, near Chelmsford, who had a heart attack at the end of January this year.

Almost two months later and the former Physical Activity Trainer is back on the road to recovery.

Mr Simms said: “After my procedure I expected to see lots of scarring, but there is hardly anything.

“It has been remarkable, in fact you’d hardly know I’d had anything done, but previously I would have had a very large scar. I’ve been back on my recumbent bike and building my strength back up much sooner than I thought I would.”

Prajeesh Mohanan, Senior Surgical Care Practitioner at the Essex CTC, said: “We’ve only been able to run this pilot scheme thanks to the support of a legacy donation through Mid and South Essex Hospitals Charity, which has given us enough funding to allow us to do almost 50 such procedures.

“By doing this we aim to be able to show what a huge difference we can make to the lives of our patients, and hopefully secure it as the standard way of doing this procedure at the Trust.”

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PATIENTS at Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust’s Essex Cardiothoracic Centre (CTC) are benefiting from a less invasive way of moving veins form their leg to their heart.

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