The government wants more day surgery carried out

At a conference in London on Friday, the British Association of Day Surgery (BADS) will stress the benefits to patients and the NHS of procedures such as varicose vein and hernia operations being carried out in a day.

The government is encouraging a greater use of day surgery for more minor operations so that NHS beds can be freed up for more serious procedures.

It has promised an extra 120,000 day care operations will be carried out annually.

Variations

But the BADS says many doctors are reluctant to recommend day care because they see in-patient care as the norm.

The will is there to carry out more day care operations, but quite often not the resources Mr David Dandy, Royal College of Surgeons

Mr Joe Cahill, secretary of the association, told BBC News Online: "There is a lot of innate conservatism amongst surgeons and anaesthetists."

He added: "There is a vast amount more day surgery that can be done."

He said there was a wide variation in the numbers of certain kinds of operations done at units around the country.

Mr Cahill said: "Nationally, the percentage of gallbladder operations carried out as day cases is 3%. In my own unit, it's around 60%."

He said moving suitable operations to day care freed up beds for more serious cases and emergency operations, benefiting patients and the NHS.

Mr David Ralphs, president of the BADS, added: "Patients must learn to ask if their operation could be undertaken as a day case; surgeons must learn to offer.

"Thousands of bed days could be saved if day surgery was properly used, and patients would have the opportunity to recover in their own homes rather than in a hospital ward where, sadly, there is also the risk of infection."

He said the aim was that 75% of elective procedures should be treated as day cases.

'Innocence'

But Mr David Dandy, a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, said it was not surgeon's attitudes which restricted the amount of day care which could be carried out, but a shortage of surgeons and resources.

"There's a certain innocence if you say all this surgeons are going to do these operations in day surgery, freeing up beds.

"If so, who's going to do the operations on inpatients?"

Mr Dandy added the equipment and facilities needed for day operations were also expensive.