Nursing knowledge and the expansion of day surgery in the United Kingdom

Background

The amount of surgery undertaken within United Kingdom Day Surgery Units has risen considerably over the past 15–20 years. Throughout this pioneering era, nursing roles and responsibilities within the modern surgical environment have developed although have largely shadowed medical advances. Evidence based nursing knowledge appears to have contributed very little to the recent success of day surgery. This may be due, in part, to the lack of attention given to modern surgical practices within current pre-registration nurse education programmes of study.

Aim

The aim of this educational audit was to evaluate the consideration given to modern surgical practices in the programmes of study of recently qualified staff nurses employed within Day Surgery Units in the United Kingdom in order to gauge the extent of the challenge.

Method

A postal audit was designed and sent to n = 247 Day Surgery Units. The audit was intended to elicit information from the staff nurses regarding their experiences of modern, elective day surgery during their nurse education programmes of study.

Results

Two hundred and seventy seven staff nurses responded revealing that the level of attention to day surgery practices within pre-registration programmes was extremely low. The professions’ actual and potential theoretical contribution to modern surgical practices was virtually nil. Their experience of pre-operative nursing intervention appeared mainly to involve the teaching of traditional surgical in-patients nursing skills. The inclusion of modern surgical practices into the theoretical assignments within the programmes of study was very limited. Once qualified, the vast majority of staff nurses experienced no additional formal education for their new role.

Conclusions

The results are discussed in relation to the re-focusing of pre-registration nurse education, changing clinical roles and the future of nursing within the modern surgical arena.