Study shows King’s Mill Hospital is one of best in the country for emergency bowel surgery

Posted Monday, February 24, 2020 2:10 PM

Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is one of the best performing Trusts in the country when it comes to carrying out emergency bowel surgery, according to the National Emergency Laparotomy Audit.

An emergency laparotomy (emergency bowel surgery) is a surgical operation for patients, often with severe abdominal pain, to find the cause of the problem and treat it. Emergency bowel surgery can be carried out to clear a bowel obstruction, close a bowel perforation and stop bleeding in the abdomen, or to treat complications of previous surgery. These conditions could be life-threatening.

The audit results released in December look across a large number of key metrics to assess how well these patients are being treated at all acute Trusts. Sherwood Forest Hospitals ranks particularly high in some of the most important measures, including:

  • The National 30-day mortality rate, for these patients this stands at 9.6% nationally, at Sherwood Forest Hospitals this figure is as low as 3.8%, the fourth best score in the county and puts them in the top six Trusts in the country
  • The average length of hospital stay for these patients stands at 16 days nationally, the figure is half that at Sherwood Forest Hospitals of only eight days. Joint eighth in the country with a number of other Trusts (the best figure is seven days).
  • One of a number of Trusts that could evidence that 100% of the most acutely at risk patients had their surgery directly supervised by a consultant surgeon and a consultant anaesthetist. This suggests that patients are always being accurately assessed for risk, and are being treated by the most appropriate clinicians.

Around 24,300 people need emergency bowel surgery each year in NHS hospitals, often as a result of severe infection, and 143 emergency bowel operations were carried out at King’s Mill Hospital during the period covered by the study.

Sherwood Forest Hospitals’ Medical Director, David Selwyn, said: “The figures from the audit show that we are delivering the best care in the East Midlands to our patients. This is all thanks to the effort, dedication and skills of the whole team across Sherwood Forest Hospitals, from the admission of a patient, to a quick diagnosis and the early intervention of different teams.

“These results reflect a whole pathway approach to how we identify, prepare for, operate and help the recovery of patients who need this care. Thank you to everyone at Sherwood Forest Hospitals who has been involved in achieving this.”

The National Emergency Laparotomy Audit was started in 2013 because studies showed this is one of the most risky types of emergency operation and lives could be saved and quality of life for survivors enhanced by measuring and improving the care delivered.  You can read the reports in more detail at: https://www.nela.org.uk/reports.

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