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.

The report says individualised risk assessment is the foundation of later high-quality patient care as it aids shared decision making and open communication, which could help to improve patients’ adherence to treatment.

It adds that drinking, eating and mobilising (DrEaMing) within 24-hours of surgery is also associated with reduced length of stay in hospital and fewer inpatient complications.

Analysis of 22,218 patients in the PQIP cohort between December 2016 and November 2020 found 17% of patients who ‘DrEaM’ experienced a major complication, compared to 37% who did not.