News
Letter from the President
Building for the future
Dear Colleagues,
This is my second letter as President. As you know I took over from Toby on the 1st of May and can honestly say I’ve been overwhelmed by the support I’ve received both from the Executive and members alike.
Since taking over I’ve attended a Cardiac Committee meeting and chaired my first Executive meeting held in Liverpool on the 9th June. On the agenda were several subjects, starting with the question of Registration. This is an issue that has been looked at over the years and no conclusion has been reached. I’d like to reassure you as members that we are working towards a satisfactory outcome and I will keep you informed as and when there are developments.
As an association we are growing in numbers and experience and one thing I know is that historically there is strength and safety in numbers. It is better to be one in an association of 90 members than alone in a department of 2 or 3. We have a superb Executive so I really would encourage you to contact any one of us with any issue or query.
As a committee we agreed our profile must be raised and that we must become ambassadors within our trusts, showing our culture of learning and excellence.
As time moves on we are being relied upon to work harder and to a higher level within the hospital and operating room environment. This is why we need to stay focused communicating, encouraging and building the best future for all SCP’s in practice now and those who are in training.
Please may I encourage you to check out the website on a regular basis, here are 3 dates for your diaries;
Southampton Mitral meeting on the 29th of October 2011
The revision course in Manchester on 15th and 16th of August 2011
The ACSA. AGM, on the 21st of April 2012 in Manchester – This follows the SCTS meeting
As an Executive we will be attending the SCTS to keep our profile high. Over the last few years our AGM has been held on Sundays, but to increase attendance at our meeting we will move the meeting back to Saturday.
Thank you, here’s to exciting times ahead!
Yours
Alistair
Posted on 23/06/2011.
Patient Identifiable data.
We are aware that many SCPs use logbooks in order to record operations at which you assisted or participated. Current regulations regarding Information Governance in the NHS severely restrict the use of patient identifiable data so as to protect protect patient confidentiality. Patient identifiable data include names, addresses but probably not hospital number or date of birth providing they haven't been used alongside a name or initials
If you have been entering such data into your logbooks, you may be in breach of Information Governance and especially if the logbooks were to be mislaid or seen by third parties. We are, therefore, writing to point this out to you and to recommend that logbooks should not contain patient identifiable data for the above reasons.
This information has been received from both the SCTS and RCS and would be verified by your local Information Governance team
S A M Nashef
Posted on 06/05/2011.
Letter from of our New President
Dear Colleagues,
May I say how very proud I am to be the newly elective President of an Association of such wonderfully well motivated professionals.
Firstly I would like to thank Toby for his wonderful leadership and friendship and his hard work on behalf of me as an individual and us as an Association.
We face exciting times ahead as well as some challenging and perplexing times. My aim is for us to become ‘bridge builders’ to become stronger and to raise our profile as a profession. We do have the most wonderful executive and membership resource and to quote Maya Angelon ‘I believe that every person is born with talent’.
Having been involved in the Association from the beginning, I can honestly say my belief and passion has never lessoned over the years, in fact it has strengthened.
I believe in our group and have always believed we can achieve more as a team than a collection of individuals.
Over the next few months my key words will be Accountability, Unity and Encouragement. We must be inclusive not exclusive in seeing only benefits for us as a group.
Let us all become better at celebrating our successes and acknowledging what a great job we do for our patients.
Alistair Marshall
President ACSA
Posted on 05/05/2011.
EACTS - ESC Guidelines for Myocardial Revasularisation
Guidelines and Expert Consensus Documents summarize and
evaluate all available evidence with the aim of assisting
physicians in selecting the best management strategy for an
individual patient requiring myocardial revascularisation taking
into account the impact on outcome and the risk benefit
ratio of diagnostic or therapeutic means.
Guidelines and recommendations by the ESC/EACTS Task Force on Myocardial Revascularization / European Journal of Cardio-thoracic Surgery
should help physicians to make decisions in their daily
practice. However, the ultimate judgement regarding the
care of an individual patient must be made by his/her
responsible physician(s).
To download this document please see the link below.
EACTS-ESC Guidlines for Myocardial Revascularization
Posted on 07/12/2010.
Death rates for NHS cardiac surgery 25 per cent better than European average, says first international audit
NHS heart surgery patients in England and Wales have a greater chance of survival and recover more quickly than almost anywhere in Europe according to the first ever comparative study of cardiac operations data from across the continent, published today (11 October 2010).
The figures, which track over one million cardiac operations from 23 countries, reveal that despite carrying out a high proportion of urgent operations and treating some of the oldest patients in Europe, mortality rates in England and Wales are significantly better than expected and some 25 percent lower than the European average. The report also shows that hospital stays in England and Wales are around 10 per cent shorter than the European average, translating to direct savings to the NHS in bed days of around £6.4m for coronary artery bypass surgery (CABG) alone. The Society for Cardiothoracic Surgery in Great Britain and Ireland says that these achievements reflect the investment in quality improvement by cardiac surgeons in the UK.
England and Wales’ consistently above average results are all the more impressive given that together they are by far the most comprehensive contributor of data; almost a third of all operations in the database are English. This provides further evidence that the collection, analysis and publication of this type of data improves quality of patient care. Overall, the report demonstrates that quality of cardiac surgery is consistently improving, with mortality rates declining across the continent, but with some national variations in both care quality and access to treatment between contributing countries (as well as all major EU countries, the report also includes data from China and Hong Kong).
The findings show:
• The database average risk adjusted mortality for coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG) is 2.4 percent. In comparison:
o Wales has a mortality rate of just 1.1 per cent
o England has a mortality rate of 1.8 per cent
o Scotland has a mortality rate of 2.2 per cent
• The database average length of in-hospital stay is 10 days. In comparison both England and Wales are less than nine days.
• Around 50 per cent of patients in England leave hospital within six days compared with around seven days in Spain and around nine days in Germany.
Surgeons say that this equates to direct savings in bed days of approximately £6.4million to the NHS from CABG operations alone, of which there were 19,660 carried out in England and Wales in 2008.*
These figures come despite the fact that the NHS is operating on some of the most elderly patients in Europe – England operates on the fifth oldest population in Europe, with urgent surgery accounting for around a third of patients in England and over half of all patients in Wales having CABG surgery.
To find out more go to http://www.scts.org/
Posted on 25/11/2010.
Publication of Updated Resusitation Guidelines 2010
The resusitation council has now published the resus guidelines for 2010. You can download your copy here.
Resusitation Guidelines 2010
Posted on 20/10/2010.
SCTS ADVANCED CARDIOTHORACICTHORACIC SURGERY PRACTICAL COURSE
Birmingham Heartlands Hospital
22-23rd October 2010
22nd October 2010
Thoracic Day
23rd October
Cardiac Day
Reduced price if you book both days.
You can download the full programme and Application form here
Posted on 15/09/2010.
EACTS 2010 Geneva 11th 12th September
You are invited to Geneva for the 24th Annual Meeting of the
European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery, currently the world’s largest
meeting in Cardio-Thoracic Surgery.
This year, for the first time, a special programme will be held on Sunday, designed
primarily, but not solely, for nurses, physician assistants and other allied health
professionals. On Saturday we also offer you the opportunity to attend Techno-
College, the event for learning the latest techniques in cardio-thoracic surgery. The
planned programme offers opportunities for you to develop practical skills, discuss
important issues in practice and education, exchange ideas and learn from experts.
Held at the Palexpo Conference and Exhibition Centre, walking distance from
Geneva Airport, the conference is ideal for health care professionals who are
dedicated to delivering and improving quality health care to cardio-thoracic surgical
patients.
We look forward to seeing you in Geneva
For all details please follow the following link
EACTS Nurses and Physicians Assistant Programme
Book before September 4th to benefit from the reduced rate.
Posted on 16/08/2010.
Mid-term outcomes for Endoscopic versus Open Vein Harvest: a case control study
Mid-term outcomes for EVH vs Open Vein Harvest: a case control study
.Bilal H Kirmani†, James B Barnard†, Faisal Mourad†, Nadene Blakeman†, Karen Chetcuti† and Joseph Zacharias*†
Published today JCTS
Posted on 11/08/2010.
ACSA Executive Appointments
I would first of all like to offer my thanks To Paul Yea, who is stepping down from the position of educational Co-ordinator this year. He has worked tirelessly for the last three years in this position and many candidates have benefited from the well run revision course that he has worked on at the Royal Brompton.
Paul Yea has been nominated the position of Paediatric Chair, which I am sure he will do equally well in.
Bhuvana Bibleraaj has been nominated to take over the vacancy as Educational Co-ordinator, shared with Peter Bhinda. Her work towards the SCTS abstracts and presentations in the past has set her in good stead for this position.
Posted on 07/08/2010.
