The Liberal Democrat party are right to highlight the benefits to patients of day case operations in their manifesto. This approach is now possible for a wider range of procedures than ever before. Day case surgery needs really well organised hospital units, patients who are otherwise fit, carefully selected and can take personal responsibility for some elements of preparing for an operation, as well as someone available to support and care for them at home after the operation. So there must remain flexibility in the system for patients who wont fit this mould.

The call for using private providers if the local NHS cant meet time limits on patient entitlements must not be used as a crutch by the NHS these centres must start contributing to clinical audits and supply data to prove quality of care to the same standard the mainstream NHS must. Currently they do not.