Delays to appendicectomy within a split‐site hospital

Purpose – Patients undergoing emergency appendicectomy incur various delays from the time of symptom onset to the time of discharge from hospital. The centralisation of hospital services over recent years has resulted in some patients who attend hospital as an emergency requiring transfer to a different site. An additional delay by way of transfer is thus incurred. The aim of this study was to test for association between various characterised delays with disease and patient outcomes.Design/methodology/approach – Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) data were used to identify all patients admitted over a one‐year period undergoing appendicectomy. Demographic and time data were extracted from hospital databases and case notes.Findings – A total of 247 patients were identified from HES data; 25 per cent of patients presented to hospital E necessitating transfer to hospital H. There was no evidence of an association between patient delays, surgeon delays or theatre delays with advanced pathology and complicated...