You may be admitted on the morning of your operation, or the day/night prior. Some operations, and patients may be suitable for what we call ‘day-case-surgery’, this is where you attend hospital on the day of your surgery, and we expect you to be able to leave hospital on the same day, with appropriate support, pain relief and contact details for help should it be needed
If you feel unwell before your admission, sometimes it is safer to postpone planned or elective operations, for advice please contact POAC on Tel: 029 2074 4775 (UHW) or Tel: 029 2071 6163 / 029 2071 6581, or alternatively, contact the ward you are due to be admitted to (this information will be on your admission letter).
Fasting / Starvation Advice
It is normal before an operation to have a period of fasting, this is designed to make your care safer. Patients may have experienced different fasting times in other hospitals, or for previous operations, different operations and anaesthetics do differ with fasting times, however there is a move towards reducing starvation times as much as safe to improve your experience (whilst maintaining safety).
Starvation; In general, unless you are given advice otherwise, you should not eat for six hours prior to your operation/anaesthetic - practically for most
🕛 - this is nothing to eat after 2AM on the day of your operation.
🥛 You are able to drink water (only water) until two hours before your operation - for most this is until 6AM on the day of your operation.
When you are admitted, please ask the nurses, surgeons and anaesthetists who you will meet about whether you are able to have sips of water - "ThinkDrink".
💊 You are able to sip water to be able to take your normal medications on the day / morning of your surgery (for detailed medicines advice click here).
The next page is about Recovering from your operation