New Surgical Same Day Emergency Care Unit opens

A new surgical Same Day Emergency Care (sSDEC) unit has opened at University Hospital of Wales (UHW). The multidisciplinary unit aims to speed up the process of diagnosis and treatment for patients with acute surgical problems, allowing many patients, who previously would have been admitted to hospital, to return home on the same day.

The state-of-the-art, multidisciplinary unit has been built to allow speciality teams from across General Surgery, Urology, Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT), Maxillo-Facial surgery and Ophthalmology to receive referrals directly from GPs, NHS 111 Wales, our Emergency Unit (EU) and paramedics, avoiding the need for many of these patients to wait in EU.

To rapidly refer a patient to the sSDEC unit or to get advice about an acute surgical problem, clinicians will be able to use the Consultant Connect mobile phone app or a specific dial in number that will connect directly with an sSDEC clinician. This initial clinical conversation will determine what that patient needs and will help teams refer patients to the right place, first time.

“Any health emergency is a very uncertain and stressful experience. Feedback from our patients shows that the uncertainty of diagnosis and long waits in emergency departments are a major concern. The new Surgical Same Day Emergency Care unit will provide much quicker access to specialist assessment and intervention, and for the majority of people will allow them to avoid hospital admission and return home the same day with a clear treatment or management plan,” Chris Morris, a Consultant General Surgeon and Clinical Lead for the new sSDEC unit stated.

Patients who are in a stable condition and have not been identified as having any red flag symptoms are suitable to be seen in the sSDEC unit. These patients will benefit from rapid access to diagnostic tests and assessment by senior doctors, enabling decisions about a patient’s care to be made quickly. Most treatments will be undertaken on the same day and the new unit has spaces specifically designed to allow teams to undertake local anaesthetic surgical procedures, endoscopy, administer intravenous medication and observation. If a treatment or test is not available that day, and it is safe to do so, patients will be allowed home to return within 72 hours for their test or operation, remaining under the care of the surgical team during that time.

Chris Morris, outlines the benefits of this approach; “For those people who require an emergency operation it should be possible for many more of them to have this as a day case procedure. This clearly has benefits for those patients who can receive same day emergency care but it also frees up hospital beds and resources for the most seriously ill patients who absolutely require treatment in a hospital bed.”

Alongside the new sSDEC unit, a Surgical Admissions Unit is already open in UHW and scheduled operating lists have been established throughout the week to allow suitable acute patients to be “booked in” for their operation helping to avoid potentially long waits in hospital for emergency operations.

The sSDEC unit is one of the ways the Health Board is working to improve access to our surgical services by providing same day diagnosis and treatment for patients who would otherwise be admitted to hospital. 

This work is one of a number of projects being supported by the Health Board’s Recovery and Redesign programme, which aims to restore and improve access to services impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, transform clinical pathways and in doing so, enhance services for patients.