62 Geriatric Surgical Liaison Staff Perspectives of Geriatric Care Before and After Introduction of An Embedded Service

Abstract

Abstract Introduction National evidence demonstrates that older people having surgery, both in the elective and emergency setting, have more adverse outcomes postoperatively when compared with their younger counterparts (1). National reports have recommended daily input from a geriatric team for older patients having surgery (2). At our hospital we have introduced a geriatric surgical liaison consultant as a formal post to ensure daily geriatric input or review for patients over the age of 70 or comorbid younger patients as requested. The aim of this study was to review perspectives across the multi-disciplinary team on care provided to these patients before and after introduction of the surgical liaison team. Methods We created a 10 part questionnaire, which was distributed amongst all members of the multi-disciplinary team, asking them to rate confidence out of 10 in management of comorbidity, polypharmacy, discharge planning, pain assessments and nutrition. These data were then analysed to produce median scores for each category before and after the introduction of the service. We compared the change in scores between the foundation year 1 (FY1) doctors and the remainder of the respondents. Results The below table demonstrates the median scores across all 36 respondents in their confidence with the assessment and management of the 10 key domains before and after the liaison service was introduced: Conclusions Universally within our survey, staff reported improvement in all 10 key indicators of care of older patients on surgery with the introduction of a geriatric surgical liaison team. Greatest benefit was seen within the FY1 group.