Surgical pre-assessment

What is surgical pre-assessment?

Surgical pre-assessment is the name of the appointment where a nurse or anaesthetist will carry out in-depth screening before surgery and make a personalised plan with you to make sure surgery goes ahead as safely as possible. The appointment will be either telephone or face-to-face.

Our service

We see approximately 10,000 patients a year in our surgical pre-assessment clinic.

Our nurse led team is made up of 24 nurse practitioners (across Southampton General Hospital and Lymington Hospital) six health care assistants and seven administrative staff.

We provide a service to 12 different surgical specialties at the General Hospital. We also pre-assess patients having surgery at Spire Hospital Southampton, Nuffield Health, the Royal South Hants and Lymington Hospital. We serve the local population of Southampton and the wider geographical area including the Isle of Wight, Channel Islands and Falkland Islands.

What people say about our service

Preparing for your appointment

• You can eat, drink and take medications as normal on the day of your pre-assessment appointment.
• Make sure you bring a list of your up-to-date medications including name, dose, frequency and why you are taking them (you can contact your GP or see your online health record for a list of your medications).
• Have a list of your current and past medical history including past surgeries and illnesses – including those when you were a child as these are still relevant.
• Please write down and bring any questions with you so the nurse can answer them.
• If you need a note for your work, please contact the surgical booking team.
• If you're coming in for a face-to-face appointment and you need to bring someone with you, please make sure this is only one person.

What will happen at my appointment?

Your assessment will be performed in two parts: an observations appointment, and a pre-assessment appointment.

Observations appointment

You are likely to have the following observations taken:

• blood pressure
• oxygen
• heart rate
• ECG (recording of the heart's electrical activity)
• swabs
• blood tests.

These tests may need your upper body exposed. Please let us know if you would like a chaperone for this.

Pre-assessment

This appointment will be face-to-face or over the telephone and will last around 45 minutes.

You will be asked questions about your:

• Past medical history
• General health
• Current medications
• Social history.

It can feel like a lot of questions so please tell us if there is anything you don’t understand.

After your appointment

The nurse or anaesthetist will make the decision on if you are fit for surgery, and if any further investigations or interventions are needed before it goes ahead. These can sometimes be done while you are waiting for surgery, or they may result in your surgery being delayed. However, it is vital to make sure you are safe for surgery.

We will also give you health advice to follow while you wait for surgery, such as smoking and alcohol reduction and exercise and healthy eating advice.

Further investigations and interventions could include:

• x-rays
• CPET (cardiopulmonary exercise test)
• echocardiogram (scan of heart)
• diabetes specialist review
• anaemia treatments
• sleep studies.

You may require a follow-up appointment or review to confirm that surgery is safe to go ahead. Once confirmed as safe, you will be given a date (if you don’t already have one).

It’s important to keep hold of any medication instructions you are given and to contact the department if you lose these or have any questions. Adjustments may need to be made to these in the days prior to surgery and certain medications, if taken wrongly, can mean that your surgery will not be able to go ahead.