Greater hospital experience reduces chances of repeat bowel operations

The research, published in the British Medical Journal, examined nearly 250,000 operations carried out at 175 NHS trusts between 2000-2008 for bowel cancer, severe cases of Crohn’s disease, blockages and scarring.

Nearly 16,000 – some 6.5 per cent – needed further surgery within 28 days.

Those originally requiring emergency surgery had a slightly higher rate of re-operations. For those whose operations were planned, there was a five-fold difference in highest and lowest re-operations (14.9 per cent compared with 2.8 per cent) among trusts performing more than 500 procedures during the study.

For those performing more than 2,500 procedures, there was a three-fold difference in re-operation rates (11.5 per cent compared with 3.7 per cent), suggesting patients treated in hospitals which did more work were less likely to need further surgery.

The researchers said re-operation rates could be a “powerful” way to check quality of surgical care when used alongside death rates. Earlier this year doctors reported major differences in death rates within a month of bowel cancer surgery.

Fewer than two per cent of patients died at one trust, rising to 15 per cent at the worst performing, the study revealed.