Admission rates, early readmission rates and patient acceptability of 142 cases of day case septoplasty.

Day case surgery should be confined to those procedures where less than 3% of patients require admission. The aim of this study was to establish the admission rates, early readmission rates and patient acceptability of 142 consecutive cases of day case septoplasty. Data acquisition was by retrospective postal questionnaire. One hundred and fifty-three patients were studied and data was acquired on 142. Ninety per cent (128/142) of patients had operations on afternoon lists. Admissions were 7/142 (5%), the early readmission rate (within 24 h) was 0% and 25/142 (17%) of patients felt they would rather have stayed in hospital for the first night after surgery. The conclusion of this work is that day case septoplasty is an acceptable practice in appropriately selected patients who are operated upon in the morning and when the technique described here is applied. An acceptably small proportion of planned day cases may require admission.