Day surgery, including the preoperative assessment of the patient: a UK experience by a Belgian anaesthetist

In some European countries like Belgium, a lot of hospitals are today dealing with two extremely real issues: adult day surgery and the preoperative anaesthesia consultation. Although efforts are made, there is often still a search for a clear-cut identity on these subjects. As in the rest of Europe, Belgian political, financial and medical driving forces are strongly favouring the shift of surgical procedures towards more day care practice. However, our country has not already reached the level of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, or the USA, where the greater majority of all surgery is ambulatory surgery. The development of new surgical technology, however, favours minimal invasiveness, whereas 'newer' anaesthetic agents result in fast recovery. In setting up real surgical day care facilities, Belgian medical and nursing staff, together with the hospital management, will have to cope with the worldwide existing variation in performing ambulatory surgery, at a hospital level, at a surgeon's and anaesthetist's level and at a provision level. Careful patient selection, conscientious anaesthetic management, and being attentive to caring for a patient leaving the hospital, are the cornerstones of decent ambulatory anaesthesia and surgery, and the key for long-term success. Together with dedicated facilities, it is therefore mandatory to have competent and enthusiastic staff. The nursing director, as well as the medical director of the day unit will have to use their power in order to avoid abuse of ambulatory beds for other purposes. As the perioperative specialist, the anaesthetist is ideally suited for the pre-, per-, and postoperative management of the ambulatory patient. Moreover, concerning the preoperative assessment clinic, UK anaesthetists have organized a valuable and interesting alternative to the expensive and time/manpower consuming system used in the USA.