Patient satisfaction with day surgery

To assess patient satisfaction with day surgery facilities in New South Wales public hospitals.

One hundred and fifty patients from each of 8 day surgery units were asked to complete a self-administered questionnaire to assess satisfaction with their day surgery experience, including details on their admission, care and postoperative course. The questionnaire responses were anonymous and there was no follow-up of non-respondents.

The overall response rate to the questionnaire was 37.3%. There was considerable variation in response rates across hospitals, ranging from a low of 14.7% to a high of 52.7%. Three procedures accounted for 55% of responses: endoscopies of the gastrointestinal tract (21.7%), gynaecological procedures (18.3%) and eye procedures (16.3%). Day surgery was generally well accepted. Of all the respondents, 78.4% would recommend day surgery to others and 94.2% would recommend the day surgery unit that they used. Respondents found their day surgery experience to be as they had expected or less worrying than expected in 87.0% of cases. The proportion requiring hospital readmission in the seven day postoperative period was 2.7%. The survey showed that the units operated quite differently in two aspects of day surgery provision: the scheduling of patient admissions; and post-discharge contact with patients to check on their recovery.