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Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm:
A service in need of surgery? (2005)

Abdominal aortic aneurysm is a life threatening condition and once a decision has been made to operate, this should be carried out as expeditiously as possible. In patients scheduled for elective major vascular surgery, numerous factors contribute to delays, not least of which is the availability of high dependency and intensive care facilities.

An acute problem? (2005)

"An Acute Problem?" is the second study related to our enlarged responsibility for including medical cases. It has been designed to link together the provision of critical care facilities with the care of severely ill medical patients throughout our hospitals. The pattern of inpatient care is changing rapidly and NCEPOD's role is to facilitate and inform that change. This study is as much about facilities and resources as about clinical practice and highlights the levels of care appropriate to patient requirements.

Scoping our practice (2004)

Although GI endoscopy as a specialty has produced good guidelines on training, the report highlights the need for national guidelines to assure continuing competence in endoscopy, particularly for those practitioners who only perform a small number of procedures each year. If we are to significantly improve the outcome of patients undergoing therapeutic endoscopy this report gives us many clear indications and recommendations about how this might be achieved.

Who operates when? II (2003)

The first 'Who Operates When?' (WOW I) report was published in 1997 and considerable changes have occurred in the staffing and surgical activity of hospitals since that time. This report again reinforces the need for sufficiently robust information and data collection systems in every Trust. Although this is often believed to be primarily necessary for producing accurate activity data, it is becoming increasingly important in clinical governance, risk management and other indices of morbidity and mortality.

Functioning as a team? (2002)

National CEPOD has repeatedly emphasised the need for the development of multi-professional and multidisciplinary teams to provide optimum care for the most seriously ill patients. In this report, based on deaths within three days of an intervention, NCEPOD looks at how far team working has developed and, most particularly, at weaknesses in the systems which create barriers to change.

Changing the way we operate (2001)

This report provides a stark comparison of the changing medical scene over the past decade. It demonstrates that patients being subjected to emergency surgery are both older and sicker than they were ten years ago. In turn, this has a profound impact on the service provision necessary to deal with these clinical problems.