Never have an op just before surgeon’s hols!

PATIENTS are twice as likely to die on the operating table if their surgeon is about to take a holiday, a top medic has claimed.

Heart specialist Samer Nashef said he looked at mortality rates for patients right before and after surgeons’ breaks.

His figures revealed they more than doubled if a surgeon was about to take leave compared to on their return.

Mr Nashef – who has written a book called The Naked Surgeon lifting the lid on his industry – was speaking at the Cheltenham Literary Festival.

He said: ‘We looked into (mortality rates and surgeons’ holidays)out of interest because we didn’t really know.

‘What we found is that the patients operated on the day just before we went on holiday had a mortality rate that was a little bit more than double the ones operated on when we came back.

‘That was a bit of a surprise, I wasn’t expecting the getting back to be that safe and there are possibly psychological reasons. One of them is being a little bit deskilled and rusty probably makes you a little bit more careful... and you don’t cut corners. I can’t prove that but I expect it is one element.’

Mr Nashef also contradicted NHS warnings that eating butter, salt and crisps increased risk of heart disease. He said: ‘There are some things you can’t do anything about, I’ll tell you what they are; your family, your genes... you can’t change your parents, your age, sex. Men do worse, old people do worse and people with terrible family history do worse.

‘There are some things that will definitely help. The first thing and most important is don’t smoke because that is absolutely a guarantee.

‘Being obese is bad, if you have high blood pressure it must be controlled because that is a problem as well and diabetes should be controlled. The things that don’t matter; butter, salt, crisps. These things are not problems.’

A previous study by healthcare analysts found patients who have routine operations on a Friday are 24 per cent more likely to die than if they went under the knife earlier in the week. Worryingly, the figure is for common procedures such as hip replacements, rather than for potentially more difficult emergency cases.

It suggested that patients suffer as they recover over the weekend with fewer senior staff on duty and lack of access to key diagnostic tests, such as scans. Overall, patients admitted at weekends get worse care in almost every aspect of treatment.