A patient has become the first in Britain to be operated on for major cancer surgery by a robot. Dean Walter, 41, had a full pelvic extraction in which his bladder, prostate, rectum and lower colon were removed through a cut in his abdomen only 2in wide. The operation usually requires a surgeon and three assistants to cut the patient open from their chest to their groin. Mr Walter, a former fitness model, would have needed three weeks in hospital to recover from traditional surgery – but he was ready to go home eight days after the robotic procedure for rectal cancer. It was done using a £2million Da Vinci Xi robot, which has four arms for cutting tissue, sealing blood vessels and filming inside the body with a 3D camera.