ACSA - Publication of Updated Resusitation Guidelines 2010

Publication of Updated Resusitation Guidelines 2010

Wed, 20 Oct 2010 12:37:24 +0100

The resusitation council has now published the resus guidelines for 2010. You can download your copy here.
Resusitation Guidelines 2010

Death rates for NHS cardiac surgery 25 per cent better than European average, says first international audit

Thu, 25 Nov 2010 09:19:30 +0000

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/

EACTS - ESC Guidelines for Myocardial Revasularisation

Tue, 07 Dec 2010 10:17:45 +0000

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

Letter from of our New President

Thu, 05 May 2011 20:10:51 +0100

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

Patient Identifiable data.

Fri, 06 May 2011 14:24:40 +0100

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

Letter from the President

Thu, 23 Jun 2011 10:58:03 +0100

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

One month to go until AGM.

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 06:07:00 +0000

ACSA members it's not too late to book for this year's AGM in Manchester. This is your chance to participate in the future direction of your associasion and profession. A representative group is essential to ensure that descisions made are in the best interest of all members.

Go the events page to find out all the details and how to register.

ACSA is now on Facebook

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 10:34:03 +0000

Chat with fellow members on facebook and get the latest news and views.
Follow this link.click here.

MSc in Cardiovascular Science

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 12:21:30 +0000

From September 24th 2012, their will be running a new, full-time 'MSc in Cardiovascular Science' at the Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences, UCL. Within this MSc there are two tracks, one Basic Science and one Clinical, with the latter incorporating two clinical modules to be held at the Great Ormond Street Hospital/ICH and Heart Hospital sites. Applications are now open, so please take a moment to look at the attached flyer for further information. I hope that you and your colleagues may find this of interest. As one of the course tutors, Dr Andrew Cook would be very happy to answer any questions you may have by email on a.cook@ucl.ac.uk You may also be interested in the annual Cardiology in the Young conference, running from 2nd-4th April 2012. with very many thanks, Dr. Andrew Cook Senior Lecturer Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences, UCL www.cardiacmorphology.com

CHRE Consultation Voluntary Register

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 10:54:46 +0100

Discussion Paper re Voluntary Registers

Accreditation Scheme for Assured Voluntary RegistersOur new role - raising standards for better care

In November 2012 CHRE will be renamed the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care.

We will also launch our new accreditation scheme for voluntary registers. We will set standards for organisations that hold voluntary registers for people working in a variety of health and social care occupations. Organisations will be able to apply to us for accreditation of their register. We will publish a list of accredited registers on our website and will allow them to use our 'quality mark' on their literature and their website to help show that they are accredited by us. This means that employers, commissioners and members of the public will be able to choose to use people in health and social care who are on a register of an organisation that has been assessed by us and accredited.

Download Consultation document here.

CHRE Consultation Voluntary Register

Follow this link.click here for more infomation for the CHRE website.

Appointments to ACSA Executive

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 22:27:20 +0100

Congratulations to Jasmin Crockett who has been appointed as Membership Chair on the ACSA executive. Jasmin was previously appointed as Trainee representative which now leaves that position vacant and expressions of interest from a current trainee will be sort.

Deirdre Evans who has worked tirelessly as Treasurer since 2009 will be stepping down this year. She has been a great support to the executive and her organisational skills have been essential. The executive and representing the whole of ACSA wish her the very best. Tobias Rankin has agreed to take over this position with the support of the ACSA executive.

Molly De Haan has agreed to stay on as Secretary this year until a suitable replacement can be found.