BURST team meets up with Post Op for BAUS 2026

BURST, the British Urology Researchers in Surgical Training collaborative, is one of the most productive trainee-led research networks in UK surgery, and the evening brought together people who shape how urological care is researched, measured and delivered.

We were joined by Professor Prokar Dasgupta, the King's Health Partners Foundation Professor of Surgery and a pioneer of robotic urological surgery; Ben Ayres, consultant urological surgeon at St George's and joint clinical lead for urology at Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT); Professor Veeru Kasivisvanathan, chair of BURST; and Marie Edison, Head of Policy at Vitality and many more distinguished guests and urology surgeons.

Urology spans everything from day-case endoscopy to major robotic cancer surgery, and the patient journey varies far more between hospitals than it should. Post Op is mapping those journeys from beginning to end, procedure by procedure, so that what good looks like is standardised and deliverable from a digital source that resides in your pocket.

Care does not start at the operating list and it does not finish at discharge. It starts in primary care, with the referral and the wait, and it continues for weeks afterwards in recovery at home. Raising awareness of that full journey, across primary and secondary care, is central to Recovery + a core part of the pathway, not an afterthought tacked on at the end.

When a clinician knows the true cost of each surgical journey, the conversation with commissioners and managers changes. It moves from asking for resources to showing where money is spent, where it is wasted, and where investment improves both the patient experience and the use of NHS funds. That is a position of strength, and it is one more clinicians should be able to occupy.

It was a delightful way to spend a summer evening, with the urologists who champion great patient care.