Pre-admission clinic in an orthopaedic department: evaluation over a 6-month period.

A pre-admission clinic for patients undergoing elective orthopaedic surgery has been used at the Royal Surrey County Hospital, Guildford, for the past 3 years. This report audits the activities of the clinic over a period of 6 months. Data regarding the patients who were invited to the pre-admission clinic during the study period were analysed. In all, 232 patients were asked to attend the clinic and a total of 221 (95.2%) attended. Of these patients, 10 had their operations cancelled and three had their operations postponed in the clinic due to various medical and social reasons. Another 28 operations were cancelled or postponed at a later stage. All of the postponed procedures were eventually performed within 3 months. Of the 232 patients, 180 (77.5%) underwent their operation on the arranged day without any complications. The pre-admission clinic in our orthopaedic department helps us to prevent a significant number of operation cancellations on the day of admission. It also facilitates an extensive pre-operative assessment of the patients and reduces the ward-based workload of the junior medical staff. More extensive use of the pre-admission clinic is recommended.