Introduction of a hand trauma day surgery operating list

Due to a huge increase in hand trauma referrals to our busy plastic surgical unit, we introduced a dedicated half-day hand trauma day surgery (HTDS) list to try and reduce the pressure on inpatient beds and length of wait for surgery. We reviewed the first 101 cases treated on the HTDS list to determine whether this allowed adequate specialist treatment of these injuries and to assess outcome and complications rates. Only one patient needed admission following surgery and our complication rate compared favourably with that of patients admitted and treated in the standard manner. We conclude that a HTDS list is both an effective and efficient method of treating a wide range of hand injuries.