Congenital Cardiac Audit Database Website

All hospitals which perform surgery and other invasive procedures on children with heart conditions are required to submit data every year for inclusion in a UK-wide database.  This database is known as the Congenital Cardiac Audit Database (CCAD), and analysis of this information allows individual hospitals and doctors to compare outcomes which should enable good or poor practice to be identified and appropriate action taken.  The collective information is now available for parents to look at through a website: www.ccad.org.uk/congenital.  The website contains information on the outcomes for each hospital for each of the most common types of surgery and procedure presented in an anonymous form.  Please do read the introductory notes, linked from the home page of the website before proceeding, so that you will have a better idea of how to interpret the data it contains.

In order to ensure that hospitals are submitting accurate data, spot checks will be made of patient’s notes. This involves senior consultants from other hospitals visiting a particular hospital and randomly selecting up to 20 sets of case notes and comparing the data submitted against the record in the notes to ensure that it is accurate.  All information seen about a particular patient will be treated in the strictest confidence. These visits to the Evelina are overseen by the Project Nurse and a Consultant.  You may if you wish, refuse consent to have your notes included in the validation process. This will not affect subsequent treatment but will mean that information about the hospital or doctor will not be accurate due to incomplete data.  If you do wish to refuse consent for your notes to be used during the validation visit please ask your child’s doctor’s to document this.

For a fuller explanation written by Dr. Qureshi and Mr. Anderson, click here. If you have any queries on the CCAD website, the data it contains or the consent required to submit patients’ data, please call Thomas Witter on 020 7188 4554.