Unlocking Capacity for Elective Recovery by Optimising Preoperative Assessments
Surgical capacity is precious. But cancellations and postponements—often at the last minute—remain common.
A study showed that 85.7% of surgical postponements are due to medical, not logistical, reasons. Essentially, patients weren’t clinically ready. And yet many wait more than 52 weeks for their surgery.
Opportunities to optimise patients are being missed. Risk isn’t flagged in time. The scramble to cancel or rebook becomes the norm and theatre space goes unused; meanwhile, 7.6 million patients are waiting to have their operation.
Pre-op assessments are still reactive, manual, and conducted too close to the surgery date. And in some cases, early screening isn’t conducted at all. With today’s level of patient demand and complexity, not conducting preoperative assessments or conducting them late is not an option anymore. Times have changed and so should healthcare processes.
If we want to recover elective care at pace, we need to rethink where time is lost, and one of the most effective levers we have is preoperative assessment.
What it will take to create clinical capacity in preoperative pathways
The earlier you assess a patient, the more time you have to optimise them. But unlocking surgical capacity will take more than sending early screening questionnaires.
Early screening should be the first step in a smart, structured process. You need to determine patient complexity. Escalate high-risk patients. Add others to additional pathways like cardiology, diabetes, or anaesthetics. Coordinate with specialist teams. Prioritise and reprioritise. Keeping track of everything and everyone.
A digital tool that simply sends a questionnaire won’t do. You need a solution that actively supports the clinical workflow.
A 25% increase in clinical capacity per week
An NHS Trust was able to increase their POA throughput by 25% a week by using Pathpoint ePOA.
As soon as a patient is listed for surgery, ePOA sends them a digital screening questionnaire. But it also automatically creates a complexity score based on the responses. It provides tags and flags and filterable worklists to ensure effective management once they get the POAs back, making sure they are provided with the full toolkit and not just one tool from the bag.
At this Trust, 65% of patients completed their questionnaire on the same day, while on average, patients complete their early screening questionnaire 4 days after being listed for surgery. That is a lot more time to ensure patients are ready and prepped for their surgery than if they were to get the information a few days before the scheduled operation date. And with ePOA’s functionalities, not only can they manage patient demand more effectively, but they also increased how many patients they can care for in a week.
Building capacity without building more
This is what optimising preoperative assessments really looks like. Admin teams aren’t chasing paperwork. Clinical teams have real-time visibility into who’s ready, who needs follow-up, and who can fill last-minute theatre slots. Patients are optimised earlier, and the risk of on-the-day cancellations and post-surgery complications are reduced.
Clearing the elective backlog and meeting the 18-week target will take time, but digital POA solutions like ePOA can help jump-start the recovery.
