Reduced cancelled ops at Cromer Hospital held up as national example
New pre-assessment procedures at Cromer Hospital have halved the number of operations cancelled on the day of surgery due to patients being too unfit – from five per cent in 2002 to just 2.46 per cent.
And the improvements at Cromer are now being shared across the country as a good example of clinical governance improvements by the NHS Clinical Governance Support Team.
Dr David Wilson-Nunn, lead consultant anaesthetist for Cromer Hospital, explains: “It’s distressing and highly inconvenient for patients to be told that their operations are being cancelled at the last moment because they are not fit enough to undergo surgery. However, being a remote site, it’s important that we restrict our operating lists at Cromer to those with only mild co-existing medical problems.
“Thanks to the help and co-operation of our pre-assessment nurses, we have now tightened up our guidelines, removing ambiguities and focusing on the sort of medical conditions that often lead to cancellations. Where there is a doubt about the patients’ fitness for surgery, we discuss each case individually and, if necessary, refer the patient to NNUH for their surgery.”
The successful work on reducing day of operation cancellations in Cromer has now been published on the NHS Clinical Governance Support Team's website as a “Eureka” (where they demonstrate examples of good clinical governance activities).
Cromer's Eureka – http://www.cgsupport.nhs.uk/Resources/Eurekas/Secondary_Care/Rewriting_Protocols_at_Cromer_Hospital.asp
Over the past year (2004/05) staff at Cromer have treated:
- 27,283- Out-patients
- 9,080- Minor injuries patients
- 5,533 – Day case patients
- 202 – In-patients
Total 42,098 (up 33% on the year before)