Live robotic surgery event wins top award

The Communications team at Guy’s and St Thomas’ has won the ‘Best Live Event – External’  category of the CorpComms Awards 2016 – winners were announced last night (Wednesday 23 November).

Guy’s and St Thomas’ award recognises the innovative use of both traditional media and new social media channels to publicise the new frontier of robotic surgery.

Robotic surgeons at Guy’s Hospital invited the world into their operating theatre when they took part in the Worldwide Robotic Surgery 24 Hour Event in November 2015.

Patient Denise Parker, 54, from Basildon, had her kidney removed by consultant urological surgeon Mr Ben Challacombe during the live broadcast – the operation was necessary because doctors had discovered a large tumour on her kidney.

Guy’s was the only hospital in the UK taking part in the event which saw 12 of the world’s leading robotic centres broadcast their pioneering operations from four continents.

The Communications team broadcast the surgery live to 10,000 followers of the Guy’s and St Thomas’ Twitter feed @GSTTnhs and also invited a journalist from the Evening Standard into the operating theatre.

The Evening Standard‘s report and video are available on their website. 

The CorpComms Award judges said of our winning entry: “This was a hugely creative and innovative approach. It was extremely well-executed and achieved a fantastic return on investment.”

Other shortlisted entrants in the Best Live Event – External  category included Visa, Virgin Trains and Schroders.

Anita Knowles, Director of Communications at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, said: “This award is well-deserved recognition for our media team and clinicians who helped educate patients and the public about robotic surgery by broadcasting an operation live on Twitter.

“People may not have heard of robotic surgery before, and might be apprehensive about agreeing to it, so demystifing it in this way is incredibly helpful.”