Optimising Perioperative Patient Care: 'Enhanced Recovery' Following Colorectal Surgery (Clinical Feature) (Report‪)‬

Background The enhanced recovery technique (also termed 'fast-track surgery' or 'a multi-modal surgical approach') was pioneered in the 1990s by Professor Henrik Kehlet, a gastro-intestinal surgeon from Denmark. He noted that, despite advances in surgical and anaesthetic techniques, patients undergoing major surgical procedures still suffered significant morbidity causing prolonged post-operative recovery times (Kehlet 1997). He postulated that, whilst good anaesthetic and surgical technique were obviously important, the fact that complications were still occurring independent of these meant that other factors were involved.