Day surgery: Nursing’s contribution to this new surgical era

Mitchell, Mark

Abstract

Background: The level of surgery undertaken in United Kingdom day surgery units has risen considerably over the past 15 - 20 years. Currently, the United Kingdom Government aims to undertake 75% of all elective surgery on a day-case basis. Throughout this pioneering era of elective surgical treatment, nursing roles and responsibilities within the modern surgical environment have largely shadowed medical advances. Consequently, numerous medical developments have pre-determined many of the present day surgery nursing practices. Currently, multi-skilled day surgery nurses principally undertake medically orientated tasks to ensure the effective throughput of day surgery patients. Evidence based nursing knowledge appears to have contributed very little to the recent success of day surgery. This is due, in part, to the lack of attention given to modern surgical practices (in particularly day surgery nursing activities) within current pre-registration nurse education programmes of study in the United Kingdom.
Aim: The aim of this study was to evaluate the consideration given to modern surgical practices in the programmes of study of recently qualified staff nurses employed within day surgery.
Method: Contact was established with n=247 day surgery units in the United Kingdom. Two hundred and fifty nurses employed within the day surgery facilities that had completed their Diploma or Degree programmes in nursing within the last 5 years responded to the postal questionnaire.
Results: The level of attention to day surgery practices within pre-registration nurse education programmes was extremely low. Moreover, an examination of the Professions' actual and potential theoretical contribution to modern surgical practices was virtually nil. Furthermore, once qualified the vast majority of staff nurses experienced no additional formal education or training for their role in day surgery.
Conclusions: The discussions relates to nurse education, clinical nursing roles in day surgery and the future of nursing within the modern surgery arena.

Citation

Mitchell, M. Day surgery: Nursing’s contribution to this new surgical era. Presented at 7th International Congress on Ambulatory Surgery, Amsterdam, Holland

• Presentation Conference Type: Speech
• Conference Name: 7th International Congress on Ambulatory Surgery
• Conference Location: Amsterdam, Holland
• End Date: Apr 18, 2007
• Deposit Date: Nov 3, 2010
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 3, 2010
• Additional Information: Event Type : Conference