Membership of the Vascular Society of Great Britain and Ireland (VSGBI)

The data were analysed to ascertain whether the likelihood of receiving palliative care was associated with the surgeon caring for the patient being a member of the VSGBI (Figure 3).
Figure 3. Surgeon’s membership of the VSGBI by treatment decision n=342

Although it has been made clear in the section on Surgery that membership of the VSGBI cannot be exclusively related to expertise in vascular surgery, the patient was more likely to receive palliative care if the surgeon was not a member of the Vascular Society.

Unfortunately NCEPOD did not ask about the specialty of the surgeon who made the decision as to whether the patient should undergo operation or receive palliative care, so we cannot examine whether a vascular surgeon would have been more likely to operate on the patient than a general surgeon or a consultant in another subspecialty of general surgery who was covering vascular surgical emergencies.