The priorities for all the clinical working groups with the Surgery in Children Operational Delivery Network are ultimately agreed by the group members. The priorities include ensuring that regional practice aligns to national standards, identifying and attempting to address regional variation in practice and collaboration to ensure continuous service development at both a local and regional level. Over-arching priorities are set annually but reviewed regularly at group meetings. The groups will annually review its progress against its agreed priorities and report back to the Surgery in Children Network Board.
Priorities identified in January 2022 included:
- Review the appendicectomy pathway against national recommendation and agree regional pathway
- Review audit of children presenting with torsions to assess regional performance
- Review day case rates (proportion of children treated during the day without the need for overnight stay) for general surgical and urology procedures compared to national targets
- Review elective urological service across region
- Review hypospadias service across region
- Review practice related to circumcision across the region