NCEPOD Common Themes and Recommendations

Since NCEPOD’s first published report in 1989 a number of reports have been released that review in-hospital perioperative deaths and quality of medical care. The purpose of this report is to look at the recommendations within a set of chosen themes observed across these reports, and to bring these together into a set of general recommendations. To extract the common themes for this report, all NCEPOD recommendations were listed and marked as a theme according to content. Each theme was then counted and ranked into numerical order. The top 10 themes were included in this review.

This report is intended to be an evolving document and a ‘living report’. As NCEPOD undertakes more studies further evidence will be added to the chapters and possibly chapters will no longer be relevant or new ones will emerge, either from changes in practice in healthcare or perhaps a light being shone on the smaller common themes that have evolved over the lifetime of NCEPOD reports.

This report confirms common results also observed across past NCEPOD reports which are the demonstration of the total decline of hospital post mortem examinations; the positive increase in critical care outreach services; and an increased number of critical care beds showing an overall increase in quality improvement. Over time the comments have focused more towards how critical care services should or could be used, rather than calling for their existence.

To download the report click on the link below.