[Ambulatory surgery in Great Britain--an overview].

Day surgery has been practised in Great Britain for many years. However, only in the last few years there has been a great surge of interest in the practice of day surgery. This has taken place despite many obstacles such as clinician's preference for more traditional approaches and initial lack of facilities and resources. Main reason for expansion of day surgery has been due to gradual change in clinical practice with new technology, search for cost efficiency, joint effort by policy makers and professionals and above all positive attitude of patients themselves towards treatment on a day care basis. In the last five years day surgery has nearly doubled in this country. Currently just under half of all elective operations are carried out on a day care basis in Great Britain. However, there is a wide variation in relation to performance of day surgery throughout the country between hospitals. This is true both for total number of surgical patients treated on a day care basis and for individual surgical procedures. Day surgery is now generally accepted as best option of treatment for over 50% of all elective surgical procedures and it is expected that by the end of this decade this figure is likely to be over 60%.