Surgery
to expand rather than having to give up as the burden is too great.
When does surveillance end? The length of stay in hospital these days does not work in favour of monitoring post-surgery potential for developing infections. The surveillance data from UKSHA cites 16 days for the median time for infection. This covered all categories of surgery ranging from seven days for small bowel surgery to 25 days for knee replacement.4 So, it is not advisable to spend a great deal
of time monitoring patients within two to three days of their surgery. It would be more beneficial to note when teams get their patients to return to outpatients for their post-surgical appointment or decide to monitor readmissions. These questions can be debated by the surveillance group and decisions made. There are many hospitals that follow the patient on a 30-day cycle either with a phone call or a patient survey. (See article by Rochon et al, in this edition of The Clinical Services Journal, to identify some cutting-edge research that is changing and developing mechanisms for this post-surgery review. ) Surveillance data from 2023-2024 report that patient post discharge questionnaires completed by patients in 2022/2023 has
increased to 79.3%, where they are given. Not every hospital is undertaking this method of monitoring. It should be remembered that those patients who have had prosthetics implanted should be monitored for up to a year rather than the 30-day cycle. Joanne stated that their hospital had an
arrangement that information came to the IPC team if the patient was re-admitted or had a swab taken in primary care – which helped with focusing the monitoring and prioritised the patients to be monitored.
OneTogether resources Launched at the OneTogether Conference is the 2025 resource, developed by the OneTogether Group. The topic is surveillance. It comes as part of a series of resources developed to assist practice to focus on the various aspects of SSI. It ensures that high-level research is the basis for understanding of the different elements of SSIs, so that amendments can be made to perioperative practice to mitigate infections. Each resource has the standards that need
to be met as an audit tool, to ensure that both perioperative staff and infection prevention teams can undertake the audit outcomes together to understand the minutiae of practice. All the resources that have been developed over a number of years are available as free
downloads from the website:
https://onetogether.org.uk/resources/
Conclusion For those in practice who have not yet started the process of surveillance of post-surgical patients it is a complex process helped by the development of online data collection and feedback of results. The talk given by Joanne, demystified the process and helped to ensure that more patients and hospital staff would benefit from understanding where their SSI came from and thus gave the opportunity to change practice as necessary.
CSJ
References 1. Surveillance of surgical site infections in NHS hospitals in England. April 2023 – March 2024. Accessed at:
https://assets.publishing.service.
gov.uk/media/67879dc22cca34bdaf58a23e/ SSISS-annual-report-2023-to-2024.pdf
2. UKSHA 2022 Surgical Site Infection Surveillance Service (SSISS). Accessed at: https://www.
gov.uk/guidance/surgical-site-infection- surveillance-service-ssiss
Come and see us for your Procedure Pack requirements 4. Ibid Come and see us for your Procedure Pack requirements
Stand H45 Stand H45
May 2025 I
www.clinicalservicesjournal.com 17
3. GIRFT – Surgical Site Infection Survey 2019 Results.2021 Accessed at: https://
gettingitrightfirsttime.co.uk/wp-content/ uploads/2022/11/SSI-report-2019-results- review12.9.22-FINAL.pdf
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