28 / 66
26
Table 4: Operative mortality frequency by specialty.
Specialty
Frequency (%)
General Surgery
2,073 (40.0%)
Orthopaedic Surgery
1,044 (20.1%)
Neurosurgery
617 (11.9%)
Cardiothoracic Surgery
560 (10.8%)
Vascular Surgery
449 (8.7%)
Urology
197 (3.8%)
Plastic Surgery
124 (2.4%)
Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery
56 (1.1%)
Paediatric Surgery
49 (0.9%)
Obstetrics and gynaecology
9 (0.2%)
Other surgeries
6 (0.1%)
Total
5,184 (100%)
Note: total n=7,270 episodes in 5,184 patients who had operative treatment.
Audit period 1 July 2007 to 30 June 2015.
Comments:
•
There is great variation by specialty in the rate of operative intervention over the audit period, attributable to the
casemix and risk group of patients in each specialty. Only nine gynaecology patients were included in this report.
•
The 97.9% (931/951) patients admitted electively who subsequently died had a higher rate of operative
intervention than the 81.3% (4,238/5,210) patients admitted as emergencies (
p
<0.001). This was not unexpected
as most elective admissions to a surgical unit are for an operative procedure.
•
Sometimes it is deemed inappropriate to continue with the procedure as occurred in 4.9% (354/7,270) procedures.
General, Orthopaedic & Neurosurgery
Most frequent
2007-2014
General, Orthopaedic & Neurosurgery
Most frequent
2014-2015