Table 1: NTASM cases at census date

2 Audit participation

KEY POINTS

In the NT, 100.0% (38/38) of surgeons participated in the audit. The SCF return rate at census date for participating surgeons was 97.9%. 100% of all public and private hospitals currently participate in NTASM

2.1 Audit numbers

During the audit period 1 July 2016 to 30 June 2021, NTASM received 428 notifications of deaths associated with surgical care and NTASM excluded 10.5% (45/428) of these reported deaths (Table 1). These did not meet the inclusion criteria and were either incorrectly attributed to surgery 2.6% (11/428) or the patients were admitted for terminal care 7.9% (34/428). Of the 383 included cases, surgeons completed 97.9% (375/383). A total of 96.6% (370/383) of the included cases had had the peer-review audit process completed by the census date (5 October 2021). The clinical information from these deaths provides the patient profiles described in this report and is the denominator in all analyses pertaining to outcomes from the audit, unless stated otherwise. The remaining 3.4% (13/383) of cases are not included in this report for the following reasons: The SCF has not been completed by the surgeon (n = 8). The case had not completed the full peer-review audit process at the census date (n = 5).

Table 1: NTASM cases at census date, 2016–2021 (n = 370)

Notifications reported 2016–2017 2017–2018 2018–2019 2019–2020 2020–2021

88 106 95 76 63

Total

428

Excluded: error 4 (4.5%) 3 (2.8%) 2 (2.1%) 0 (0.0%) 2 (2.1%) 11 (2.6%)

Excluded: terminal care

Notifications included 6 (6.8%) 7 (6.6%) 4 (4.2%) 10 (7.6%) 7 (11.1%) 34 (7.9%)

78 (88.6%) 96 (90.6%) 89 (94.6%) 66 (86.8%) 54 (85.7%) 383 (89.5%)

Surgical case pending

Review process incomplete 0 (0.0%) 0 (0.0%) 0 (0.0%) 0 (0.0%) 8 (14.8%) 8 (2.1%)

0 (0.0%) 0 (0.0%) 0 (0.0%) 0 (0.0%) 5 (9.3%) 5 (1.3%)

Review process complete 78 (100%) 96 (100%) 89 (100%) 66 (100%) 41 (75.9%) 370 (96.6%)

Reference: Appendix data table 1 and Appendix data table 2

Since 2018–2019, there has been a decrease in the number of deaths notified to NTASM. In 2019–2020 this could be due to COVID-19 impacting on the number of patients admitted to hospital. In 2020–2021, 3 deaths were reported to NTASM after the census date (5 October 2021), due to staffing issues.