Patients Undergoing Planned Surgery over the Weekend More Likely to Die

Patients who plan for a surgery at the end of the week are more likely to die, according to a study by Imperial College London.

Researchers at the Imperial College London came to the conclusion based on the four million elective procedures that were conducted between 2008-2011 in NHS hospitals in England.

The study was conducted by Dr. Foster Unit at Imperial.

On analyzing the data, the researchers noticed that nearly 27,582 patients died within 30 days of surgery. When the patients underwent operations on Monday, the mortality rate dropped, and it increased for each subsequent day of the week. The chances of the person dying was 44 percent high if the person was operated on Friday rather than Monday.

The study states that for all those planned procedures conducted on the weekend, the risk of dying was still high by 82 percent. The number of operations conducted over the weekend was small and represents a different mix of patients.

"The first 48 hours after an operation are often the most critical period of care for surgery patients," said Dr Paul Aylin, who led the study, from the School of Public Health at Imperial. "So if the quality of care is lower at the weekend as some previous studies have suggested, we would expect to see higher mortality rates not just for patients operated on at the weekend, but also those who have operations towards the end of the week, whose postoperative care overlaps with the weekend. That is what we found."

Unlike the previous studies conducted, this new study consists of both deaths in hospitals and deaths after discharges. In this way, the current study doesn't just focus on hospital deaths. Based on the study, the researchers predict that the difference in the mortality rate occurs due to poor quality of care provided to patients during the weekend due to less staff, resources and diagnostic services.