NCEPOD study on “Acute limb ischaemia”

Background

NCEPOD is undertaking a study to evaluate the quality of care provided to patients with acute limb ischaemia, looking at the pathway of care from initial presentation to healthcare through to discharge from hospital following treatment.

NCEPOD is looking to identify remediable factors in the quality of care received by patients and produce a national report with recommendations to improve the quality of care provided.

More information

The study was proposed by the Vascular Society and supported by BSIR amongst other organisations.

Reviewers will identify a sample of patients who were admitted to hospital with ALI and collect the clinical notes from their pathway of care: From the vascular specialist centre where they were treated as well as from the pre- transfer hospital and primary care if applicable.

The notes will form part of a case review, which will inform recommendations in a resulting national report, due for publication in November 2025.

There is currently no code for ALI to reliably separate it from chronic limb ischaemia (its ICD10 code as is used for chronic limb ischaemia).

The study will need some help from a volunteer in vascular surgery or interventional radiology to identify the patients suitable for this study.

Scoping work has shown that a set of surrogate codes will identify a sample of patients, in which one third had ALI.

We need a study contact in every Vascular Arterial Centre in England, Wales, Northern Island to work with the NCEPOD local reporter to review the listed patients and confirm those with ALI from the discharge summaries. The scoping work indicated that this should take no more than a couple of hours work. The study can not proceed without this manual filter.

We would provide certification of participation in the study and study contacts would be named in the report acknowledgments.

We ask that the local vascular clinical governance/ audit lead nominate someone for this task and let NCEPOD know the name of the nominated individual (via the email below) by August 31st 2024

Further information about this study including a copy of the study protocol can be found on the webpage:

NCEPOD ALI

Case reviewers

We need a study contact in every Vascular Arterial Centre in England, Wales, Northern Island to work with the NCEPOD local reporter to review the listed patients and confirm those with ALI from the discharge summaries.

The scoping work indicated that this should take no more than a couple of hours work. The study can not proceed without this manual filter.

NCEPOD is recruiting a multi-disciplinary group of healthcare professionals with a working interest in the care of patients with acute limb ischaemia. We aim to recruit senior clinicians (e.g. grade ST6 and above) to ensure that applicants have enough experience for the case note review.

All applicants should be in current clinical practice.We are looking for clinicians from a wide variety of specialties, including (and not limited to):

• Vascular surgeons
• Interventional radiologists
• Vascular anaesthetists
• Vascular specialist nurses
• Emergency department physicians
• Pharmacists
• General nurses

Case reviewers will be asked to attend meetings during which they will assess case note extracts and questionnaires and provide expert opinions on the quality of healthcare received by patients with acute limb ischaemia.

A training day will be held on October 24th 2024 (if you are unable to make this date, training on an ad hoc basis is possible).

You would typically be required to attend/join a minimum of 4 subsequent case reviewer meetings at the NCEPOD offices in London. It is anticipated case review meetings will begin in November 2024 and will run for approximately 6 months. The data collected during these meetings will form a major part of the study’s final report.

Travel expenses will be reimbursed in line with our expense forms.

We would provide certification of participation in the study and study contacts would be named in the report acknowledgments.

If you would be interested in acting as a case note reviewer for this study, please send a copy of your CV (short version) via email to the contact details below. The deadline for applications is the 12 th September 2024.

Tel: 0207 251 9060.    E-mail: ali@ncepod.org.uk.      Web: www.ncepod.org.uk/ali.html

National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death (NCEPOD)

NCEPOD, Ground Floor, Abbey House, 74-76 St John Street, London, EC1M 4DZ.