Does intravenous lidocaine speed up gut recovery after large bowel surgery?

Background and study aims
A common problem in about 40% of patients having colorectal (large bowel) surgery is that their gut takes longer than normal to start working again. In most patients the gut will start working after surgery in 2-3 days, but in some it takes a week or more. This delayed recovery causes nausea, vomiting, complete constipation, tummy pain and tummy swelling and can take days to improve. During this time patients have to stay in hospital with a continuous intravenous drip and often need insertion of a nasogastric tube to empty the stomach to reduce vomiting (most patients find this very unpleasant).
Lidocaine (a local anaesthetic) used intravenously (through the vein) has been shown to reduce pain and inflammation after surgery and seems to help other aspects of recovery that may be important for return of gut function, for example reducing nausea and vomiting.
The ALLEGRO study hopes to find out if lidocaine can help improve the recovery of gut function in patients after bowel surgery. Half of the people who agree to take part in ALLEGRO will receive the intravenous lidocaine and half will receive a placebo (or dummy) salt solution intravenously. We will then compare the two groups and see whether gut function returns more quickly in the group who have received intravenous lidocaine
Who can participate?
Adults having certain types of surgery to their colon or rectum (large bowel).
What does the study involve?
Participants will be randomly allocated to receive intravenous lidocaine or placebo salt solution continuously for 6-12 hours starting at the start of general anaesthesia. They will undergo the planned surgery and aftercare as normal.