Data gathered during the Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) Surgical Site Infection 2019 survey has now been distributed to any trusts who expressed a wish to receive their data packs at the current time.
For trusts that asked for a delay due to the COVID-19 crisis, GIRFT will be issuing the packs at a later date. The project team is not expecting a formal reply until hospitals are able to fully share the relevant data with their participating specialty department.
Participants from more than 100 NHS sites and more than 50 independent sector sites contributed to the 2019 data collection, before the SSI survey portal closed in December. GIRFT’s clinical leads have been consulted on the survey results for all 13 participating specialties and have also contributed their specialist knowledge and insight.
An SSI national report will follow, with recommendations to help inform clinical practice.
This is the second SSI survey carried out by GIRFT, aiming to address the lack of awareness of SSI rates noted during the programme’s deep dive meetings in trusts. Post-surgery infections can cause significant harm to patients and result in increased hospital stay, readmissions and re-operations. They are also a significant cost to the NHS.
The GIRFT SSI survey seeks to complement the work of Public Health England (PHE) by engaging frontline clinicians in the data collection process and exploring variation in surgical practice and outcomes for a wide range of procedures across breast surgery, cardiothoracic surgery, cranial neurosurgery, ENT surgery, general surgery, obstetrics and gynaecology, ophthalmology, oral and maxillofacial surgery, orthopaedic surgery, paediatric general surgery, spinal surgery, urology and vascular surgery.
The first GIRFT SSI survey, carried out in 2017, helped to increase understanding of SSI rates for each specialty and identify areas of good practice to share. Trusts can use the information in their 2019 datapacks to further review their SSI rates and look at where improvements can be made to prevention methods.
For further information regarding the SSI survey, please contact a.ridgeon@nhs.net.
