Has the publication of cardiac surgery outcome data been associated with changes in practice in northwest England?
Performance league tables are linked to lower death rates after major heart surgery, reveals research published ahead of print in the journal Heart. The findings are based on almost 26,000 patients who had coronary artery bypass surgery (CABG) for the first time between1997 to 2005, in the north west of England. Thirty different surgeons in four major NHS sites performed CABG during this eight year period. The research team looked for changes in expected and predicted death rates, and for any evidence that surgeons were taking on less complicated or risky cases to “enhance” their figures, as opponents of public disclosure had suggested. The report of the public enquiry into children’s death rates at Bristol Royal Infirmary was published in 2001. One of its key recommendations was that the performance of individual heart surgeons should be made public. The research team therefore divided the eight years into surgery carried out before (1997 to 2001) and after (2001 to 2005) public discl
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