Patients eight times more likely to die following major surgery at outlier hospitals

Death rates for a major emergency abdominal surgery are almost eight times higher at some outlier hospitals compared with top performers, a national report has found.

A review of emergency laparotomies in England and Wales has identified six hospitals as having much higher-than-average 30-day mortality rates for the surgery between December 2018 and November 2019.

Hospitals identified by the annual National Emergency Laparotomy Audit as having the best outcomes, such as Stepping Hill Hospital and Salford Royal Hospital, had mortality rates of around 2.5%.

But the review, published this month, found some hospitals, such as George Eliot Hospital, had 30-day mortality rates for emergency laparotomies as high as 19.6%

The national 30-day mortality rate for emergency laparotomies in England and Wales was 9.3% last year and has fallen consistently since the review started in 2013.

Some trusts told HSJ that data collection issues were partly to blame for the high mortality rates recorded in the review.

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Source: HSJ, 20 November 2020

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