Public Lecture: Prehabilitation - What is it and why is it important?

This public lecture was delivered by Dr Andrew Packham and Dr Heather MacKinnon on Thursday 3rd November 2022 at 5:30pm. Both Dr Packham and Dr MacKinnon work at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust which delivers secondary care for the people of Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland. The Trust is also a tertiary care provider for the East Midlands and hence the Fit4Surgery Cancer service supports people being treated from across this area.

This talk discussed why it is important to measure how ready individuals are for surgery and how the Fit4Surgery Prehabilitation service can help. This is important as it allows both the patient and the NHS to prepare for that person’s treatment. The different ways to think about each person’s preparation were explored in the talk, as it is important all aspects of each individual’s health are covered.

Dr Packham and Dr MacKinnon also talked about the ideas and the research behind prehabilitation, including which elements are important and what is happening across the UK. Information from the Leicester-based Fit4Surgery service was shared, to show how it works to improve outcomes for people preparing for major cancer or orthopaedic surgery. The talk finished with where prehabilitation will go in the future and how this could help the NHS recover after the pandemic.

Dr Andrew Packham is a Consultant Anaesthetist and the Medical Lead for both the Anaesthetic Cardio-Pulmonary Exercise Testing (CPET) and the Prehabilitation services. Having spent 10 years as a Consultant Anaesthetist and 5 years as Lead for CPET, Andrew is passionate about supporting people to optimise their health as they prepare for major surgery. This enthusiasm enabled him to secure pilot funding form NHSE&I for a prehabilitation service in 2019. Andrew has been the driving force behind this service as it has moved through development and conversion to a substantive service.

Dr Heather MacKinnon is a Physiotherapist and the Project Manager for the Fit4Surgery Cancer Prehabilitation service. Before joining the Fit4Surgery team in 2019, Heather worked as a Clinical Academic Physiotherapist, conducting her PhD developing a physical activity intervention for people living with kidney disease in combination with clinical work across surgical specialities, ITU and renal medicine. Heather has been able to combine her clinical expertise with  intervention development skills and knowledge gained from her PhD to support implementation of the Fit4Surgery service.

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