Summary
Background
The national surgical site infection (SSI) surveillance service in England collates
and publishes SSI rates that are used for benchmarking and to identify the prevalence
of SSIs. However, research studies using high-quality SSI surveillance report rates
that are much higher than those published by the national surveillance service. This
variance questions the validity of data collected through the national service.
Aim
To audit SSI definitions and data collection methods used by hospital trusts in England.
Method
All 156 hospital trusts in England were sent questionnaires that focused on aspects
of SSI definitions and data collection methods.
Findings
Completed questionnaires were received from 106 hospital trusts. There were considerable
differences in data collection methods and data quality that caused wide variation
in reported SSI rates. For example, the SSI rate for knee replacement surgery was
4.1% for trusts that used high-quality postdischarge surveillance (PDS) and 1.5% for
trusts that used low-quality PDS. Contrary to national protocols and definitions,
10% of trusts did not provide data on superficial infections, 15% of trusts did not
use the recommended SSI definition, and 8% of trusts used inpatient data alone. Thirty
trusts did not submit a complete set of their data to the national surveillance service.
Unsubmitted data included non-mandatory data, PDS data and continuous data.
Conclusion
The national surveillance service underestimates the prevalence of SSIs and is not
appropriate for benchmarking. Hospitals that conduct high-quality SSI surveillance
will be penalized within the current surveillance service.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: January 17, 2013
Accepted:
November 8,
2012
Received:
July 6,
2012
Identification
Copyright
© 2012 The Healthcare Infection Society. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
ScienceDirect
Access this article on ScienceDirectLinked Article
- Post-discharge surgical site surveillance – where to from here?Journal of Hospital InfectionVol. 84Issue 3
- Improving patient safety through surgical site infection surveillance: response to Tanner et al.Journal of Hospital InfectionVol. 84Issue 3
- PreviewWe refer to the study and accompanying editorial by Tanner, Leaper et al. describing perceived failings of the Health Protection Agency (HPA) national surgical site infection (SSI) surveillance programme in England, now run by Public Health England (PHE).1,2 Whereas we welcome ideas to improve the surveillance, the authors appear to have misunderstood many aspects of the programme and we would like to redress some of their misconceptions.
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