Day-stay tonsillectomy: is hospital stay reduced at the expense of increased community care?

There is concern about the burden day-stay surgery created upon community services. We have followed 128 children and 38 adults undergoing day-stay tonsillectomy and a similar cohort of adults and children undergoing tonsillectomy as inpatients and looked at the demands made on general practice and casualty services over the 2 weeks after discharge. Twelve adults (18%) and four children (3%) required overnight admission after day-stay surgery. Within the first 2 weeks, 27 adults (48.2%) and 62 children (50%) visited their GP and 13 adults (23.2%) and six children (4.8%) visited the casualty department. There was no statistically significant difference for either adults or children when comparing the day-stay and inpatient cohorts. Adult day-stay tonsillectomy is associated with a high admission rate. Both adult and paediatric tonsillectomy lead to considerable demand for general practice and casualty services, but this demand is high regardless of whether the day-stay or inpatient route is chosen.