615 Evening Emergency Theatre Usage Analysis Pre And Post COVID-19: Are We Making the Cut?

Emergency theatre is a 24/7 service. We aim to assess a large UK hospital’s utilisation of theatre time in the evening. Method Electronic records of all evening (6pm-9pm) operations between January-February 2020 (pre COVID-19) and July-August 2020 (post COVID-19) assessed for start and finish times, send for times and booking times. Existence of pending cases during downtime noted as well as any delay reasons. Results Time between out of room and send for times (when cases pending) average 59 minutes pre COVID-19 vs. 78 minutes post COVID-19 (median 35 minutes vs. 59 minutes, respectively). Time between surgical end and send for times (when cases pending) average 83 minutes pre COVID-19 vs. 96 minutes post COVID-19 (median 64 minutes vs. 81 minutes, respectively). Time between out of room and anaesthetic start average 84 minutes pre COVID-19 vs. 101 minutes post COVID-19 (median 58 minutes vs. 80 minutes, respectively). Send for times post booking for new evening bookings average 80mins pre COVID-19 vs. 57 minutes post COVID-19 (63 minutes vs. 38 minutes, respectively). 20.45% of cases did not have a computer booking for surgery pre COVID-19 vs. 25.92% post COVID-19. Pre COVID-19, theatre overrunning contributed to delays, whereas post COVID-19, delays also due to repeat COVID-19 swabs, repeat group & saves and delays in bed availability. Conclusions Lingering effects of COVID-19 have caused further delays to a service already in need of implementation of changes to improve utilisation. Surgical, anaesthetic, nursing and executive teams must work together to improve efficiency.