Safety of day-case paediatric tonsillectomy in England: an analysis of administrative data for the Getting It Right First Time programme

In the UK, the Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) programme was established by the Department of Health and Social Care as an initiative to investigate variation in healthcare delivery and patient outcomes between hospital Trusts in England. Variation between Trusts is unwarranted unless justified by patient case-mix, patient preference, equivocal evidence of effectiveness of a particular patient management approach or intractable resource constraints.

This new paper used the Hospital Episodes Statistics (HES) database to investigate variation in the rates Trusts discharged children the same day after tonsillectomy and associations with adverse postoperative outcomes. They found evidence that outcomes for day-case and overnight stay tonsillectomy are similar and conclude the majority of specialist and non-specialist Trusts should increase day-case surgery rates.

Joining the authors today was our chair Tanya Selak who is an Associate Editor as well as Ruth Tyrrell from GIRFT.