St. James’s Hospital Dublin – the 1st Irish ESTS Accredited Thoracic Surgical Oncology Centre

Members of the St. James’s Hospital multi-disciplinary Thoracic Surgical Oncology team

As the largest thoracic surgical oncology program in Ireland providing surgical care to approximately 55% of the Irish population with lung cancer, the St James’s Hospital Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery was invited to undertake accreditation from the European Society of Thoracic Surgeons (ESTS). This culminated a number of years of multi-disciplinary work in optimising our enhanced recovery after thoracic surgery (ERATS) and minimally invasive surgical programs including developing our robotic assisted thoracic surgery (RATS) program. The ESTS recognised our department as providing excellence in clinical care based on years of prospective surgical data submission.

On February 27^th 2024, the Secretary General of the ESTS informed our department that we have successfully passed the procedural review and been awarded European Accreditation recognising the high quality of care in our thoracic surgical oncology centre. We are only the 11^th accredited centre in Europe and the first in Ireland. This international recognition is testament to the hard work and dedication of the entire multi-disciplinary team and the vast array of clinical support specialities that combined facilitate delivery of exceptional care to a complex patient cohort. This is particularly relevant in Ireland as lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer related mortality and the entire team at St James’s Hospital is of paramount importance in improving national survival rates.