Website gives survival rates for congenital heart disease centres

doi:10.1136/bmj.39234.662384.DB

BMJ 2007;334:1187 (9 June), doi:10.1136/bmj.39234.662384.DB

News

Website gives survival rates for congenital heart disease centres

Andrew Cole

London

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

A new NHS website has been launched that will, for the firsttime, allow parents of children with congenital heart diseaseto compare the performance of the United Kingdom's specialistchildren's heart centres before they decide on treatment.

The website, run by the NHS Information Centre and based onfigures provided by clinicians and hospitals to a central cardiacdatabase, gives detailed information on the procedures carriedout by the 16 centres and survival rates for the most commontreatments.

The overall survival rate for neonates (up to 30 days) rosefrom 96.9% in 2000-1 to 97.8% in 2004-5, the last year for whichthere are collected statistics. The survival rate for infants(31 days to one year) rose from 94.3% to 96.8% in the same period.

But the data have not been adjusted for risk. Parents and carersare warned not to base their decision solely on which centre. . . [Full text of this article]

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