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Is day case tonsillectomy suitable for children in Cumbria?

Haytham Kubba (Specialist Registrar in Otolaryngology at Monklands General Hospital, Airdrie, Scotland)
Ralph Messersmith (Clinical Audit Facilitator at City General Hospital, Carlisle, UK)

British Journal of Clinical Governance

ISSN: 1466-4100

Article publication date: 1 June 1999

221

Abstract

Day case tonsillectomy has been advocated as a means of reducing health care costs associated with inpatient care. The authors studied 74 consecutive children undergoing conventional overnight stay tonsillectomy using a parental questionnaire and a retrospective case note review. Medical exclusion criteria for day surgery were present in 21 per cent, and social exclusion criteria in 82 per cent. Overall, only 16 per cent of children satisfied all the criteria for suitability. On the day of surgery, 29 per cent of children were reported as having poorly controlled pain and 31 per cent as having nausea and vomiting, such that unplanned admission would have been likely had they been done as day cases. In total 63 per cent of parents were unhappy or very unhappy with the possibility of same day discharge. The authors do not plan to introduce day case tonsillectomy in Cumbria.

Keywords

Citation

Kubba, H. and Messersmith, R. (1999), "Is day case tonsillectomy suitable for children in Cumbria?", British Journal of Clinical Governance, Vol. 4 No. 2, pp. 56-60. https://doi.org/10.1108/14664109910306785

Publisher

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MCB UP Ltd

Copyright © 1999, MCB UP Limited

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