The use of red wristbands for allergy documentation in day case surgery.

In England over six million day case surgical procedures are performed each year. Many of these patients have an allergy and are given a red armband to notify staff of this. This audit compared the use of red armbands to indicate allergy at two institutions undertaking day case surgery. The presence of wristbands, the allergies recorded on them and the correlation to allergies documented in the patient notes were analysed.