“It was successful early on within the National Health Service.. [because] you could eliminate the cost of some unhelpful, unnecessary tests… referrals to other “-ologists”… in our system that works, because more work is just more work. It’s not more money.”

Is the business case for prehabilitation a “slam dunk”, as some enthusiasts claim? If so how do you measure value versus volume, is value always a subjective term and can the balance between the two be addressed? How does the NHS’s “internal market” compare to the US’s fee for service environment? Furthermore, where are the sensible limits of prehabilitation, how far do we take it before we move forward to an operation?

This piece has been available to EBPOM London attendees since it was first recorded in the earlier part of the year. For exclusive access to other similar pieces now and in the future please visit www.ebpom.org

Presented by Monty Mythen and Kay Mitchell, Senior Research Manager for critical care research, NIHR Biomedical Research Centre, University Hospital Southampton, UK, with their guests, David Selwyn, Deputy Medical Director at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust and Director of The Centre for Perioperative Care (CPOC), Sol Aronson, tenured Professor, Duke University and Jeff Vender, Emeritus, Harris Family Foundation Chairman of the Department of Anesthesiology at NorthShore University Health System, Evanston, Illinois and Clinical Professor at the University Of Chicago Pritzker School Of Medicine in Chicago, Illinois