Exploring the fundamental aspects of the Enhanced Recovery After Surgery nurse's role

Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) is a multimodal, multidisciplinary programme that aims to limit surgical stress during the perioperative period. The importance of a facilitator to improve patients' compliance with the ERAS pathway and ensure its successful implementation is described in the literature. This role is commonly undertaken by a nurse, but it is unclear what their role entails in practice.

To investigate the common aspects of the role of the ERAS nurse, and similar roles.

A modified Delphi technique was used to explore the opinions of ERAS nurses, facilitators and their colleagues in the UK. A series of consensus statements on the role of the ERAS nurse were produced that were voted on and agreed via an online survey, then subsequently voted on at the seventh ERAS UK conference.

Six consensus statements were proposed and agreed in the second round of voting. In the final round of voting, consensus was reached on four of the six statements related to data collection, patient education, staff education and patient support throughout the pathway. The two statements that did not reach consensus were related to leadership and project management.

It is hoped that by producing these consensus statements, the role of the ERAS nurse will be better understood by all members of multidisciplinary ERAS teams, particularly managers and decision-makers, and can be supported in the future.