Day surgery development and practice: key factors for a successful pathway

In the UK, day surgery is defined as a patient being admitted to hospital for a planned procedure and discharged home the same calendar day. This typically incorporates a stay of 4–6 h, but with more complex surgical procedures, longer stays may be required. The procedure must have been planned and booked as a day case before the patient’s admission to hospital. Patients who are planned as inpatients but discharged home on the day of surgery count as inpatients with zero length of stay rather than day cases. This emphasizes the importance of a patient being on a day surgery pathway from the point of surgical booking. Day surgery is not to be confused with 23 h stay surgery which is inpatient surgery with a 1 day length of stay. In the USA, this is commonly referred to as day surgery, but this definition is not valid in the UK.