Unexpected overnight admissions following day-case surgery: an analysis of a dedicated ENT day care unit.

Day-case surgery is an integral part of otolaryngology, and many procedures can be performed as day-cases provided strict criteria are applied in the selection of patients. We reviewed patients who required unexpected admission from the day-case unit at the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital, London between April 1997 and March 1998. The total number of patients undergoing surgery was 1642. Of the total, 29 (1.8%) had to be admitted unexpectedly for overnight stay: 24 of these patients had undergone nasal surgery, representing 5.4% of all the nasal procedures performed--and the cause of all these admissions was haemorrhage. Further analysis revealed 22 of these 24 nasal operations had included a septoplasty. The total number of septoplasties performed was 163; thus, septoplasty had an unexpected admission rate of 13.4%. This information has been used to formulate stricter guidelines for day-case septoplasty admissions in our unit.