Introduction
North of Scotland Cardiothoracic Surgery Unit, Aberdeen Royal Infirmary
About the unit
We provide adult cardiac and thoracic surgical services in the north of Scotland including Orkney and Shetland. Located at the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary Foresterhill site, the unit also has satellite outpatient facilities at Ninewells Hospital, Dundee and Raigmore Hospital, Inverness.
Services provided
Adult Cardiac Surgery
Thoracic Surgery
Rehabilitation and follow up
6-8 weeks postoperatively
Access
Buses run frequently from city centre and station. Car parks (charges apply) are provided for patients and visitors. The unit is located in ARI Phase 2; the Cardiac ICU is on the lower ground, the Ward and High Dependency Unit on the 5th – wards 50 and 51.
Visiting hours
Visting is 2:30pm – 5:00pm and 6:30pm – 8:00pm
Location
North of Scotland Cardiothoracic Surgery Unit (NOS-CTS),
Aberdeen Royal Infirmary,
Foresterhill,
Aberdeen,
AB25 2ZN
Tel: 0845 4566000
Trust Website: http://www.nhsgrampian.org/
Cardiac Outcomes
Number and type of operations performed
This graph shows the number and percentage of each type of heart surgery done by this consultant surgeon. The number of operations is shown in the line going up the left hand side. The percentage (%) underneath each coloured bar shows how much of this consultant's heart surgery is made up each procedure type.
The 'key' underneath the graph shows what procedure(s) each coloured bar shows. The abbreviations used are explained below:
- Isolated: This procedure has been carried out on its own. No other procedures were done during the same operation.
- CABG: Coronary artery bypass grafting
- AVR: Aortic valve replacement
- MV: Mitral valve procedure
You can find out more about these procedures in the 'About cardiothoracic surgery' section. If you or someone you know if having heart surgery, it may be helpful to know whether the consultant does lots of that procedure. If you have questions or concerns about the number of procedures being done at your hospital, you should speak to your heart surgeon.
In-hospital survival rate (risk adjusted)
This graph shows the percentage of patients who survived their operation and left hospital alive. This is the 'In-hospital survival rate'. Some patients are more unwell than others and some need more complex operations. Hence, hospitals and consultants perform a range of cardiac operations and the type of patients they operate on can differ. So that we can make fair comparisons between them, the survival rates have been 'risk adjusted' to take into account the illness of the patient and the complexity of the operation. The dot on the graph shows the risk-adjusted survival for the unit/surgeon you have selected and the number of operations performed over the last 3 year period. The blue line indicates the predicted survival and the red dotted lines the range of results expected, worked out by complex statistics.
For more information on understanding mortality rates, look at the Understanding the graphs page
Average patient risk profile
Some risk factors like age, gender, and other medical problems can affect the outcome of heart surgery.
Each of the graphs below shows what percentage of this consultant's patients have each risk factor (light blue bar on the left) next to the average for the whole of the UK (dark blue bar on the right). This can tell you whether the consultant operates on high risk patients in general, and whether they specialise in doing particular types of complicated surgery, like operations on the thoracic aorta.
You can find out more about the risk factors in the 'About cardiothoracic surgery' section.
Risk adjusted in-hospital survival for all units
This graph shows the percentage of patients who survived their operation and left hospital alive. This is the 'In-hospital survival rate'. Some patients are more unwell than others and some need more complex operations. Hence, hospitals and consultants perform a range of cardiac operations and the type of patients they operate on can differ. So that we can make fair comparisons between them, the survival rates have been 'risk adjusted' to take into account the illness of the patient and the complexity of the operation. The dot on the graph shows the risk-adjusted survival for the unit/surgeon you have selected in comparison with the other units and surgeons in GB&I.
Thoracic Outcomes
Lung Cancer Clinical Outcomes Publication 2016 (2014 data)
The outcomes of patients undergoing surgery to remove a lung cancer in this Trust in 2014 are given here.
Three outcomes are reported. These are the percentage of patients alive at 30 and 90 days after surgery, and the median length of stay for a lung cancer operation in this Trust. Beside these numbers are the combined figures for all Trusts in England that undertake lung cancer surgery within the NHS.
Surgeons operating in this hospital
| El-Shafei Hussein | -Not Available- |
| Remmen Hardy | -Not Available- |
| Jeffrey Robert | -Not Available- |
| Buchan Keith | -Not Available- |
Early survival after lung cancer surgery in this hospital
| Number of operations | Survived after 30 days (adjusted percentage) | Odds ratio* and 99.8 confidence interval for 30 day survival | Survival after 90 days (adjusted percentage) | Odds ratio* and 99.8 confidence interval for 90 day survival | |
| Aberdeen Royal Infirmary | -Not Available- | % | % |
% | % |
| England total | 5657 | 97.93% | 96.22% | ||
| This hospital team is not an outlier at either 30 or 90 day survival. | |||||
Brief description
This page shows the percentage of all patients who underwent surgery in this hospital and who survived 30 days and 90 days after the day of their surgery. The number of patients surviving is high across all hospitals in England.
The characteristics of patients that a Trust operates on affect their results. For example, older patients or those who are less fit are more likely to have complications than others. In order to provide a useful comparison for patients, and to treat Trusts that operate on higher risk populations as fairly as possible, we adjust the results mathematically, to partially take account of this effect. More information on this process is available from the LCCOP page here.
Once the survival data is adjusted, it is analysed to look for “outliers”. These are units whose results are so much better (positive outliers) or worse (negative outliers) than the national results that the difference is not likely to be due to chance. This year there were no negative outliers on any outcome measure. One hospital achieved a 30 day survival rate that was significantly better than the national data, meeting our criteria to be defined as a positive outlier.
*The odds ratio is the odds (chances) of a patient surviving surgery in this hospital, compared to the national average. Some difference is expected by chance.
Length of stay
| Median length of stay (nights) | Interquartile range | Percentage data completeness | |
| Aberdeen Royal Infirmary | |||
| All England | 6 | 5-10 | 74.8% |
This data includes all nights spent in hospital, both before and after their operation, during their admission for lung cancer surgery. The data is obtained by matching two NHS databases, the Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) and the Cancer and Outcomes Services Dataset (COSD). It has not been possible to exactly match every patient across the two datasets, and so not every patient is included in this figure. The ‘percentage data completeness” column records the percentage of patients operated in this hospital where who could find length of stay data for.
Consultant Cardiac Surgeons 2013 - 2016: 5
Consultant Congenital Cardiothoracic Surgeons: 0
Consultant Thoracic Surgeons 2014: 4