Ensuring safe surgery for our patients – do we do enough?

Last year in the UK, 223 people died while undergoing surgical procedures. Statistics produced by the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) show that 28.3% of all operations carried out last year were associated with some form of complication – defined as any undesirable or unexpected result. Although only 0.1% of these were fatal, complications still carry a high potential for morbidity. Post-surgical infections, for example, range from mild cellulitis to uncontrollable sepsis with variable morbidity. When standard preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative safety measures are taken, infections still sometimes occur. In 2001, the US National Quality Forum (NQF) introduced the concept of the ‘never event’ and defined 27 surgical events, including wrong site, wrong patient and wrong procedure, which should never occur. Medical and surgical advances over the last decade have undeniably made today’s healthcare system safer and much more efficient than it was when the initial list was released. Despite this, the ‘never event’ tally is still worryingly high, which forces us to ask: are we doing enough?