Abstract

Patients undergoing nasal surgery have historically been routinely followed up in consultant led clinics some months after surgery. It has been noted that a significant proportion of these patients either did not attend these appointments or did not require them, impacting on the efficiency of ENT outpatient clinics. A quality improvement project was undertaken to assess this problem and to propose a new patient pathway whereby patients are contacted by ENT nursing staff by telephone three months following surgery. During these telephone conversations only 9.5% of patients requested outpatient follow-up and all of these patients were discharged upon their follow-up. The project demonstrates that nurse-led follow up is an efficient, effective and safe way of managing patient care post-nasal surgery.