Back surgery (spinal surgery) at Spire Edinburgh Hospitals Murrayfield and Shawfair Park

At Spire Edinburgh Hospitals, you have a choice of expert orthopaedic (bone and muscle) and neurosurgery consultants who perform back surgery to help you return to your everyday activities as quickly as possible. Your consultant will provide you with a treatment and recovery plan that’s personalised to you and your needs. Our nurses and physiotherapists will provide expert aftercare to help you live life to the fullest.

At Spire Edinburgh Hospitals, our consultants are highly skilled at performing back surgery for a variety of conditions. Your consultant will be able to recommend the best type of surgery for your needs. This may include one or more of the following:

• Discectomy – to remove part, or all, of a slipped disc and relieve associated symptoms
• Laminectomy – to remove part of a vertebra to relieve pressure on the spinal cord
• Spinal fusion – your surgeon takes a piece of bone from elsewhere in your body (usually your hip) to insert between two vertebrae to strengthen them

We’re able to offer innovative surgical techniques that have been designed to improve outcomes. These include:

• If your consultant thinks it’s right for you, they may perform a minimally invasive back surgery – this usually means a faster recovery time while still achieving the same outcomes
• Endoscopic discectomy where the surgeon makes very small incisions and is able to remove a spinal disc without removing bones and soft tissues
• Interspinous distraction can be used for lumbar spinal stenosis, where a device is implanted between two vertebrae to relieve a trapped or compressed nerve
• Synthetic bone substitutes are available which means your consultant doesn’t need to remove bone from elsewhere in your body to fuse your vertebrae

Getting here

Spire Murrayfield is an approximate 20 minute drive east from Edinburgh Airport or 10 minutes west from Haymarket train station.

Spire Shawfair Park is to the south east of Edinburgh city centre, conveniently located close to the City Bypass and the Royal Infirmary.

Both hospitals have free parking for you and your visitors.

Your consultations

During your consultations, you’ll meet one of our expert consultants who’ll:

• Discuss your medical history
• Assess whether tests and scans are required, such as an X-ray, an MRI or a CT scan, so they can look at your back in more detail
• Discuss which type of surgery you’ll need for your condition and what it’ll involve
• Explain about the general anaesthetic and how it may affect you

All of your consultations will take place in one of our consultation rooms. These consultations give you an opportunity to ask questions and get advice about what’s best for you. Once you’ve decided to go ahead with back surgery, your consultant will help you prepare, and explain the next steps.

When you come in for your operation, you’ll be with us for one to four days.

If you’ve come with a friend or family member, they’re welcome to wait in our lounge while you have your surgery.

Here’s what will happen on the day of your back surgery:

• You’ll meet your surgery team and anaesthetist
• Your anaesthetist will administer the general anaesthetic, which will send you to sleep for the operation
• Once it’s taken effect, your surgeon will make the first incision and start your procedure

You’ll start your recovery back in your private room.

After surgery, you’ll probably feel some pain or discomfort – this is normal after surgery. Our nursing team will give you painkillers to help you with this and may provide medications to prevent infection and reduce the risk of clotting.

One of our physiotherapists will help get you moving again and provide you with some exercises you can do throughout your recovery to help you get the best possible outcomes.

Although everybody’s different and you should always follow your consultant’s advice, here’s a typical recovery timeline for back surgery: