A third of patients miss out on risk assessments before surgery

Almost one in three patients having major non-cardiac surgery still do not receive a documented individualised risk assessment, research by the Royal College of Anaesthetists has found.1 The proportion has remained unchanged since the college’s perioperative quality improvement programme (PQIP) began in 2016, which it says “represents a real opportunity for improvement.”The latest cycle of PQIP included 8634 patients who had major surgery between March 2023 and March 2024, from 135 hospitals across the UK. Comparisons were also made with earlier cohorts, making a total of 53 478 patients at 173 hospitals.Individualised risk assessments help identify existing conditions that may cause surgical complications and enable doctors to plan care tailored to the patient. They also improve shared decision making between clinicians and patients and help ensure informed consent.Guidelines from the Centre for Perioperative Care, a cross organisational, multidisciplinary initiative led by the Royal College of Anaesthetists, recommend that all patients…
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