About the Clinical Outcome Group

Our aim

To develop meaningful clinical outcomes following paediatric surgical procedures in order to:

• To drive improvements in surgical outcomes by identifying best practices and allow propagation of the best methods of paediatric surgical care in the UK and internationally
• Benchmark UK and international paediatric surgery
• Inform patients and families and help them make the right choices
• Allow surgeons and surgical units to monitor their own performance for the purposes of medical revalidation and provide assurance to commissioning bodies and the public

How?

Paediatric surgery is characterised into two broad groupings:

High volume – low complexity surgery

Individual surgeons are now able to access funnel plots demonstrating their outcomes for these procedures via SWORD (Surgical Workload Outcomes Audit Data base).

Low-volume-high complexity surgery

BAPS supports the collection of population based surgical outcome data through the BAPS-CASS process. This surveillance system has been running since 2006 and datasets are available for most common neonatal conditons. In addition, BAPS has developed two cloud-based registries for hypospadias and gastroschisis that can be accessed through these pages. Surgeons who participate in these registries receive a certificate for revalidation purposes, benchmarked outcomes, and parental feedback forms. Click on gastroschisis or hypospadias to find out more.

The future

Healthcare technology is advancing rapidly.

Common complaints about registries include the need to enter registry data into databases that are not linked to the patient’s electronic patient record (EPR).

Mindful of this the BAPS Outcome Committee are currently reviewing the strategy and methodology for obtaining registry data. The Committee is aiming to define standardised data sets that commissioners can require providers of paediatric surgery to store in exportable format to reduce the need for multiple data entry and increase the level of participation and ascertainment. Updates will be provided via BAPS Council and newsletters.

The Committee

Chair: Joe Curry

Members:

• Richard Stewart
• Paul Johnson
• Carl Davis
• Hany Gabra
• Stefano Giuliani
• Liam McCarthy
• Rene Wijnen (International)

Co-opted: Marian Knight (National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit, BAPS-CASS)