Pre-assessment for surgery

Our pre-assessment for surgery service assesses the general health of patients who have been referred for surgery.

Following your recent outpatient appointment, the clinician has made a decision for you to have an operation and it is therefore necessary for you to attend a nurse-led pre-operative assessment clinic before the operation. This is the next step in your care pathway. If you have more complex medical issues, an anaesthetist may also see you, although not necessarily on the same day. The purpose of the appointment is to assess your general health through a brief discussion of your health as well as a series of tests before you have an anaesthetic and undergo surgery. This service reduces the number of operations that are cancelled on the day due to unforeseen problems.

Currently, this centralised pre-operative assessment service assesses patients from the following specialities:

• ear, nose and throat (ENT)
• general surgery
• vascular surgery (doctor-led appointments at St Mary's only)
• urology
• gynaecology (doctor-led appointments are held at St Mary's only)
• ophthalmology (held at Charing Cross only)
• breast services
• plastic and reconstructive surgery
• trauma services
• orthopaedics
• interventional radiology (for neurology and hepatobiliary medicine)

Other specialties offer a separate pre-operative assessment service to patients within their own departments.

We offer elective placements for medical students and operating department practitioners (OPDs). If you are interested, contact your placement coordinator for the Trust, or call Helen Evbuomwan (lead nurse) at 020 3313 4455 or Janet Hancock (clinical nurse manager) at 020 3312 1047.