Major surgery patients ‘need better perioperative care’

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Patients who undergo major surgery should receive an individual risk assessment, effective postoperative pain management and additional support immediately following their procedure, a report out today says.

The Royal College of Anaesthetists and University College London’s fourth report of the Perioperative Quality Improvement Programme (PQIP) found about one in three patients having major high-risk non-cardiac surgery did not have an individualised risk assessment. This was despite this being recommended by case law (Montgomery, 2015) and subject to a recent Prevention of Future Deaths review.