Prehabilitation: from evidence to everyday practice

Evidence Snapshot

Prehabilitation has been increasingly discussed in the literature and clinical guidance as an important part of perioperative care. But how well integrated is prehabilitation in surgical care?

A recent international survey published in Clinical Nutrition¹ explored how prehabilitation is currently implemented - and highlighted prevailing barriers that could inform standardised adoption.

What did the survey find?

Across 200 surgical departments in 45 countries:

- 31.5% had a formal, routine prehabilitation programme

- 59.5% used selective elements only e.g. nutrition or exercise

- 9% had no prehabilitation provision

- Integration scores did not differ significantly by hospital type or surgical volume

What does effective prehabilitation look like?

Where prehabilitation was embedded, teams were typically multidisciplinary- most commonly including surgeons, dietitians, nurses and physiotherapists. Larger teams were associated with better integration. Notably, the type of hospital (teaching versus district general) was not associated with the prehabilitation team size.

Key Barriers

The most reported challenges were:

- Lack of structured prehabilitation services i.e clinicians offering prehabilitation within standard service frameworks

- Limited funding and facilities

- Low patient motivation or engagement

- Absence of internationally standardised protocols/guidelines

Commonly cited barriers in this study were more organisational than clinical.

What does this mean for UK services?

Although no UK centres were included in the study, the findings suggest this may be achievable across hospital types:

- Successful prehabilitation is achievable regardless of hospital size

- Embedding prehabilitation within existing ERAS pathways is a practical route forward

- Clear definitions and standardised frameworks

We're interested to hear from you

We’re interested to hear about your perceptions and experiences of prehabilitation. Please reach out to us! By working collaboratively, together we can support more individualised perioperative care for patients. If you are interested in having one of the Fresenius Kabi Scientific Affairs team participate in your team meeting, please reach out to us; scientific.affairsUK@fresenius-kabi.com

1. Bezmarević M, Folwarski M, Wobith M et al. Use and implementation of prehabilitation in major abdominal surgery: Results of an international survey. Clin Nutr. 2026 Apr 16;61:106666. doi: 10.1016/j.clnu.2026.106666. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 42054966

For healthcare professionals only

GB-NP-2600044 May 2026