Administration of Regular Medications

Unless otherwise instructed by an Anaesthetist, all routine medications should be continued preoperatively on the day of surgery (given with water to enable comfortable swallowing).

Except for:

Anticoagulants including warfarin and dabigatran.
Diuretics/ACE inhibitors.
Anti-inflammatory drugs.
Antiplatelet drugs - if patient is taking any of these drugs for secondary prevention of cardiovascular events, the risks vs benefits of cessation should be discussed with the surgical team or Anaesthetist.
Oral diabetic drugs and insulin.

The Anaesthetist concerned will advise on the management of patients taking the above medications.

For more information, refer to the Clinical Pharmacology Peri-operative Medications guideline (search for "peri-operative" on the CDHB intranet).


Information about this CDHB document (1301):
Document Owner:	Blue Book Editorial Committee (see Who's Who)
Issue Date:	December 2013
Next Review:	December 2015
Keywords:
Note: Only the electronic version is controlled. Once printed, this is no longer a controlled document.
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Topic Code: 1301