Acute hospital preoperative assessment redesign: streamlining the patient pathway and reducing on-the-day surgery cancellations.

Introduction: Avoidable surgery cancellations in an acute trust were often attributed to inadequate preoperative assessment. These assessments, undertaken shortly before surgery, were delivered across eight different locations, 60% by a central nursing team and the remainder by other healthcare professionals. There was inconsistency in what and who were assessed, and inadequate time to optimise patients.

Effectiveness of timed and non-timed second appointments in improving uptake in breast cancer screening.

Objectives: To estimate the effect on breast screening uptake of delayed, targeted, second timed appointments in women who did not take up an initial breast cancer screening appointment offer.

Methods: Non-attending women received a four-month delayed second timed appointment following non-response to the initial invitation and the normal open invitation sent to non-attenders. A comparison group was sent a four-month delayed additional open invitation.