Surgical checklist "cuts deaths by 40%"

22 Jan 2009

A checklist devised by the World Health Organisation can cut deaths by 40% and complications by more than a third when it is used in major operations.

The National Patients Safety Agency (NPSA) has told all hospitals in England and Wales that they must be using it by February 2010.

The checklist has been tested in eight countries around the world. All participating countries saw a similar reduction in deaths and complications.

The single page checklist takes just a few minutes to complete. It has three sections – one to be used before patients are anaesthetised, one for use before the skin is cut and one for use before the patient leaves the operating theatre.

Dr Atul Gawande, the leader of the WHO safe surgery project and professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, said: “The results…indicate that gaps in teamwork and safety practices in surgery are substantial in countries both rich and poor.

“With the annual global volume of surgery now exceeding 234 million, the use of the WHO checklist could reduce deaths and disabilities by millions.”

There are more than eight million surgical procedures carried out each year in the UK. In 2007, 129,419 surgical incidents were reported to the NPSA. 271 of these led to the death of the patient.

Guy Forster, a solicitor at Patientlawyers.com, said: “Of course any system which has the potential of saving lives must be applauded but it begs the question why this type of checklist has not been devised before and why it will not be implemented before 2010. We continually see incidents where patients have come to unnecessary harm because basic surgical procedures were not adhered to.”

back