Future priorities of acute hospitals for surgical site infection surveillance in England

Abstract

Whereas the majority of hospitals' priorities for SSI surveillance are included in the current programme, the top-ranked priority, caesarean section, is not included. Given the diversity of priority areas, maintaining a comprehensive spectrum of categories in the national programme is essential to assist hospitals in addressing local priorities.

Mapping national surveillance of surgical site infections in England: needs and priorities

“…Half of the 84 respondents to the survey (50%) reported hip replacement as a top future priority, followed by CABG, coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) (47%) and caesarean section (46%) [10]. Cholecystectomy, gastric, reduction of femoral neck fracture, limb amputation and bile duct, liver, pancreatic surgeries were classified as lower future priorities.…”

“…The study included 13 clean (minimum wound class I) and 10 clean-contaminated (minimum wound class II) procedure types, including 17 procedures offered by the SSISS (four mandatory, 13 voluntary). Six additional categories for which national surveillance is not currently undertaken were included as they had an average rank in the top five in the survey [10].…”

“…Priorities and current surveillance practices were obtained from 84 responses to a survey emailed to 161 IPC teams at all acute trusts in England by PHE in 2013 [10] and current national surveillance requirements (i.e. mandatory, voluntary, not offered) were obtained from the SSISS protocol [9].…”

“…In 2013, PHE undertook a survey of all acute NHS Trusts in England which included questions on their future priorities for SSI surveillance [10]. The results revealed heterogeneity in priority areas but with strong support for orthopaedic surveillance and caesarean section, the latter not currently included in the programme.…”

“…This study aims to assess the consistency between the current surveillance systems, perception of priorities by NHS trusts, and the associated SSI burden in England. We mapped the estimated annual number of SSIs and associated economic burden in each surgical category, against current national surveillance activity, government priority status (mandatory vs voluntary), and the average priority ranking given by trusts in the survey [10].…”