Spinal surgeries

What this data shows:

Adult spinal surgery refers to all operations, whether planned or emergency, undertaken on adults in a neurosurgical unit on  the spinal column, spinal cord and spinal nerves of adult patients (17 years or older).  Examples include operations to remove a spinal tumour, to remove slipped discs and to repair spinal fractures.

The data used in this outcome publication has been derived from three years’ of NHS England Hospital Episodes Statistics (HES).

How the data is gathered:

Neurosurgical Units typically serve populations of 1.5 – 3.5 million. Most units are part of a Major Trauma Centre. Neurosurgical Units provide a wide range of elective (planned) and non-elective (urgent and emergency) operative and non-operative services.  These services include everything from the intensive care of patients suffering from a serious head injury to key-hole lumbar disc surgery. Thus the risk of an individual neurosurgical patient dying may vary from over 50% to close to zero.

More information about the data source:

HES data is dependent on the accuracy and completeness of clinical coding undertaken by the Trusts responsible for Neurosurgical Units in England. Trusts adopt different procedures to validate their coding before it is provided to the NHS. Working through the Neurosurgical National Audit Programme, consultant neurosurgeons have reviewed the coding of deaths in this audit to ensure that the data is as accurate as possible.

Data Source:

University Hospitals Birmingham Health Information Department as contracted by the Neurosurgical National Audit Programme (NNAP).

Data Period:

Annual 1st April 2013 – 31st March 2016

Further Information:

Further information is available on the NNAP website and via the NNAP Chair, Mr Richard Nelson – Richard.nelson@nbt.nhs.uk