In the UK, approximately 70% of surgical procedures are undertaken as day-cases. Little information exists about recovery from day-case surgery, yet international data highlights patients are at risk of developing significant longer-term health problems including chronic post-surgical pain and persistent postoperative opioid use.

This paper outlines the methods for the POPPY study, the largest UK multicentre prospective observational study considering short- and longer-term outcomes following day-case surgery.

Join the authors and our Editor, Dr Helen Laycock, for a discussion about this excellent new methods paper.

Prehabilitation seeks to enhance functional capacity and preparedness before surgery with the aim of improving outcomes; it is generally based on exercise, diet and psychological interventions. While there is obvious appeal to this approach in terms of patient experience and resource use, the interventions are complex and the evidence base for prehabilitation before cancer surgery is heterogeneous. Prehabilitation requires patient understanding and motivation as well as commitment of resources. Programmes are challenging to design and implement, and can generate ‘intervention-based inequalities’ based on the capacity of patients to engage.

Find out why prehabilitation must be implemented carefully to avoid widening inequalities with this new podcast hosted by Professor Cliff Shelton and his coauthors.

Full paper here.

2025 Special Issue on Oncoanaesthesia here.

Until more evidence becomes available, this pragmatic, multidisciplinary consensus statement aims to support shared decision-making and improve safety for patients taking glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists, dual glucose-dependent insulinotropic peptide receptor agonists and sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors during the peri-operative period.