Many ear, nose and throat (ENT) day case procedures are performed on otherwise healthy individuals who are in employment. Upon discharge after an operation a ‘sick note’ is usually issued advising the length of time that may be required off work to recover. Whilst various factors may influence how long an individual takes off, not least the type of operation that has been performed, the patients' type of employment may also be a relevant factor.

It has been frequently observed, anecdotally, that self-employed patients take or request less sick-leave after a procedure than those in employment that grants sick leave without a financial burden. It is this aspect that we intended to study.

Limited guidance for recommended recovery times is available through the Royal College of Surgeons of England website. This includes recommendations for septoplasty surgery,1 although it is not clear from what data these guidelines were generated. Previous work involving postal questionnaires have assessed patients’ return to work following common ENT operations.2 They found that return to work was highly variable following ENT operations with 42% having more than two weeks off work.

If, as hypothesised, there is an observed difference between those self-employed and those with paid leave, then the health economic and social implications could be significant and form the basis of an interesting discussion.

We aimed to select some common, elective ENT day case procedures performed on otherwise healthy adults and investigate how long each patient took off work before returning. Patient data on type of employment was collected along with other basic demographics.