Live tweets and videos streamed during surgery could help "reassure" family members of loved-ones going under the knife, according to a Bushey doctor.

Twitter users were able to follow a hip operation taking place at the Spire Bushey Hospital, of Heathbourne Road on Tuesday morning.

At 9.45am, hospital tweeters used Vine, a mobile service that lets the user capture and share short looping videos.

This was the first time the application was used to document a surgical procedure in the UK.

Consultant Aresh Hashemi-Nejad, who performed the procedure, said: "When patients go for surgery, their family have no idea what’s going on and this can be worrying for family and friends.

"What’s nice about this way of communicating is that the family are kept informed what’s going on as it happens, and this can reassure them."

Mr Nejad, who wrote down all the steps of the procedure before surgery began to help hospital tweeters, said this kind of operation created a high amount of "visual impact".

He said the husband of the patient was very interested in the procedure and was tweeting back during the surgery, commenting on how things were progressing.

The 39-year-old patient’s surgery lasted about an hour and a half.