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.
Outcomes and reports from all of our projects can be accessed by group members through our NHS Futures page – please click here for access.
Priorities identified in January 2025 included:
- Conduct a patient level audit to review key aspects of the regional best practice suspected appendicitis pathway
- Support regional delivery of paediatric circumcision best practice recommendations
- Support regional delivery of best practice pathway for children presenting with suspected testicular torsion
- Improve pathways for patients transitioning from paediatric surgical services to adult services across the region
- Support development of educational videos for surgical trainees
- Support regional audit to review variation in practice with regards use of Total Parenteral Nutrition (TPN)
- Consider potential variation in endoscopy practice across the region and next steps to support service