Abstract
Following COVID and an aging population waiting lists in Swansea Bay for elective procedures along with the rest of the UK had reached an all time high. Many patients have become frailer over time and may no longer be suitable or keen for surgery. There was not an efficient mechanism in place for screening these patients and many were being cancelled on the day or having pre-op assessments close to the time of surgery and found to be unsuitable. As part screening our elective surgical waiting lists for frailty we used a number of mechanisms including a electronically screening questionnaire. This was sent to 78 patients highlighted through power BI as meeting frailty criteria and on surgical waiting lists. The questionnaire consisted of a ‘self CFS’ reworded alongside K Rockwood and questions from the CRANE questionnaire. The patients were sent a link with a brief outline of the purpose of the questionnaire and the potential need to be called to clinic if they had any frailty needs. There was a contact number for a admin assistant if there were queries. If they couldn’t access the technology they could also contact them complete via telephone. Over 50% of patients completed the questionnaire online. Interestingly the majority of patients completing the questionnaire had a clinical frailty score over 4 (calculated via clinicians). A clinician also calculated a frailty score for the patients completing the questionnaire which showed good concordance between patients ‘self score’ and a clinicians score. This work showed that our frailer population are able to use technology to good effect and pending more research there may be a role for patients to ‘self score’ themselves in a clinical frailty score. This is invaluable in cutting down resources needed for screening for frailty in many areas