The Hyperbaric Medicine Unit in Aberdeen is a nationally funded service providing consultant delivered care for the whole of Scotland. Emergency and elective treatment is provided for decompression illness, carbon monoxide poisoning, osteoradionecrosis, and other wounds and infections. This is backed up by a 24 hour medical advice line for emergency referrals.

Medical cover is provided by consultants from Anaesthetics, Medicine and Accident & Emergency. Each consultant continues to work within their base specialty but with a part-time commitment to the hyperbaric service in their job plan. The unit provides internationally recognised courses in hyperbaric medicine and opportunities regularly arise for consultant colleagues, who wish to develop an interest, to be trained locally and join the service. We also provide training for nursing staff and opportunities for medical students from the UK to undertake elective attachments.

For more details, please visit the Hyperbaric Medcine Unit website.

Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, along with Royal Aberdeen Children’s Hospital, is one of the four units comprising the Managed Service Network for Neurosurgery in Scotland. It covers the largest geographical catchment area serving a population of 800,000.

The neurosurgical service has been expanding over the decades and is now delivered by five substantive consultant surgeons, four consultant anaesthetists, a dedicated neurosurgical theatre, access to emergency theatres, CT (including intra-operative), MR (including functional), PET scanner, neurophysiology, speech and language, specialist nursing and physiotherapy support and neuro-rehab. The neurosciences unit comprises neurosurgery, neurology, neurophysiology and the acute stroke unit, along with a dedicated neuro-HDU. There is access to a large ITU facility.

Sub-specialty neurosurgical interests include base of skull surgery, endoscopic surgery (including pituitary surgery), complex spinal surgery, spinal tumours, brain tumours and awake craniotomy.

Aberdeen Maternity Hospital (AMH) was built in 1937 and now caters for over 5000 deliveries a year. A new Women's Hospital is due to be built and completed by 2021, bringing together the Obstetric, Neonatal and Fertilty services with Gynaecology and Breast Surgery.

There is 24 hour resident Labour Ward anaesthetic cover, backed up by a sub-specialty group of consultants. Two consultants are present at AMH all day during the week, with on-call cover being provided at other times. As well as specialist Obstetric clinics, there is an Anaesthetic clinc for higher risk patients and one for pre-operative assessment prior to Caesarean section.

Elective orthopaedic surgery is performed at Woodend Hospital, a mile from the main Foresterhill Site, whilst trauma surgery is managed at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary (ARI). Woodend Hospital has six dedicated orthopaedic theatres, carrying out over 4500 cases per year.

A number of orthopaedic subspecialty and ‘general’ lists are catered for: shoulder, hand, spinal, sarcoma, revision/complex hip and knees and foot and ankle lists are all part of the weekly theatre schedule. Although a separate hospital to ARI, both the anaesthetists and surgeons work across both sites.

We have an evolving ERAS system for the primary hip and knee arthoplasty, and care for a large number of cases on an ambulatory basis using regional anaesthesia. A dedicated HDU facilitates complex and major surgery in our patient population, and support from acute pain team nurses helps ensure good practice.

Trauma surgery has a dedicated theatre list six days per week in ARI. We provide tertiary care for complex trauma in the North East of Scotland.

Built in 2004, Royal Aberdeen Children’s Hospital (RACH) is an 85 bed tertiary paediatric hospital providing high quality care for children up to the age of 16 years from the north-east of Scotland and the Orkney and Shetland Islands. Wider clinical networks exist enabling children from other parts of Scotland to receive their specialist care at RACH.

A team of six consultant paediatric anaesthetists lead the delivery of paediatric anaesthesia care to neonates, infants and children attending RACH for surgery or other procedures requiring general anaesthesia.

RACH covers a wide range of elective and unscheduled paediatric surgical specialities including neonatal surgery, general surgery (major GI, urology and thoracic cases), major orthopaedic surgery, ENT, ophthalmology, plastic, maxillofacial and dental surgery. There is a variable neurosurgical caseload that is accommodated within the unscheduled theatre activity.

Anaesthetic support is frequently required for insertion of long term venous access lines.

Theatre sessions exist to cover medical paediatric specialities in particular oncology, gastroenterology and respiratory medicine. RACH is the regional oncology centre for the north of Scotland.