Day surgery admissions and complications

The growth of British day surgery over the last decade has been a success story. Quality patient care should be the goal for all involved in day surgery and the number of unintended hospital admissions is now recognised as a significant clinical indicator of good day practice. This Cambridge retrospective analysis indicates that, of the 31117 day cases studied over an 8-year period, 425 admissions were recorded (1.36%). Altogether, 51 major and 386 minor complications caused these admissions. Gynaecological admissions of 203 accounted for 48% of the total. It was noted that the seniority of the surgical and anaesthetic staff was a factor in reducing the incidence of these admissions. There would appear to be a need for universally-accepted day surgical clinical indicators so that day units within different countries may make meaningful comparisons of their admission rates. © 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.