Abstract
Over eight years (1970-8) 1055 patients underwent operations for hernia or "major" varicose veins in a day-bed unit. Here, 608 were discharged home on the day of operation, 262 were transferred to a convalescent hospital for 48 hours, and 161 were retained in the acute ward as part of a controlled trial. Special emphasis was placed on selection and preadmission screening. Failure of planning was uncommon in that only 2.5% were detained in hospital and 1% had to be readmitted. About one-quarter of the patients had complications but these were generally trivial and were satisfactorily treated by the community nursing sisters or general practitioners, or both. Analysis of the total operations for hernia or varicose veins in the unit over the past 19 years shows that, whereas formerly all patients with these conditions were admitted to the main surgical ward, nowadays almost all are managed either by day care or in a five-day ward.
Full text
PDF
Selected References
These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.
- Garraway W. M., Cuthbertson C., Fenwick N., Ruckley C. V., Prescott R. J. Consumer acceptability of day care after operations for hernia or varicose veins. J Epidemiol Community Health. 1978 Sep;32(3):219–221. doi: 10.1136/jech.32.3.219. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Garraway W. M., Ruckley C. V., Prescott R. J. General practitioners' response to day care surgery. Practitioner. 1978 Jul;221(1321):22–25. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Nabatoff R. A., Stark D. C. Complete stripping of varicose veins with the patient on an ambulatory basis. Am J Surg. 1972 Nov;124(5):634–636. doi: 10.1016/0002-9610(72)90102-x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Ruckley C. V., Cuthbertson C., Fenwick N., Prescott R. J., Garraway W. M. Day care after operations for hernia or varicose veins: a controlled trial. Br J Surg. 1978 Jul;65(7):456–459. doi: 10.1002/bjs.1800650704. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Ruckley C. V. Day care and short stay surgery for hernia. Br J Surg. 1978 Jan;65(1):1–4. doi: 10.1002/bjs.1800650102. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Ruckley C. V., Maclean M., Ludgate C. M., Espley A. J. Major outpatient surgery. Lancet. 1973 Nov 24;2(7839):1193–1196. doi: 10.1016/s0140-6736(73)92951-6. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Ruckley C. V., Smith A. N., MacLean M., Small W. P., Falconer C. W. Team approach to early discharge and outpatient surgery. Lancet. 1971 Jan 23;1(7691):177–180. doi: 10.1016/s0140-6736(71)91947-7. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Russell I. T., Devlin H. B., Fell M., Glass N. J., Newell D. J. Day-case surgery for hernias and haemorrhoids. A clinical, social, and economic evaluation. Lancet. 1977 Apr 16;1(8016):844–847. doi: 10.1016/s0140-6736(77)92790-8. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Williams J. A. Outpatient operations. I. The surgeon's view. Br Med J. 1969 Jan 18;1(5637):174–175. doi: 10.1136/bmj.1.5637.174. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]