Finalised Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) in England - April 2011 to March 2012

For the coverage period 1 April 2011 to 31 March 2012.

Participation and Coverage

• There were 247,699 PROMs-eligible procedures carried out in hospitals¹ and 185,034 pre-operative questionnaires return, a headline participation rate of 74.7 per cent (69.9 per cent for 2010-11).
• For the 185,034 pre-operative questionnaires returned, 175,378 post-operative questionnaires were sent out², of which 139,537 were returned - a return rate of 79.6 per cent (81.0 per cent for 2010-11).

Unadjusted Scores

Comparing pre- and post-operative 'EQ-5D Index' scores (a combination of five key criteria concerning patients' self-reported general health), an increase in general health was recorded for:

• 49.9 per cent of groin hernia respondents (50.5 per cent for 2010-11)
• 87.3 per cent of hip replacement respondents (86.7 per cent for 2010-11)
• 78.4 per cent of knee replacement respondents (77.9 per cent for 2010-11)
• 53.2 per cent of varicose vein respondents (51.6 per cent for 2010-11)

Comparing pre- and post-operative 'EQ VAS' values (the current state of the patient's self-reported general health), an increase in general health was recorded for:

• 38.9 per cent of groin hernia respondents (39.1 per cent for 2010-11)
• 63.6 per cent of hip replacement respondents (61.4 per cent for 2010-11)
• 53.8 per cent of knee replacement respondents (50.8 per cent for 2010-11)
• 42.0 per cent of varicose vein respondents (39.8 per cent for 2010-11)

Comparing pre- and post-operative responses to condition-specific questions, improvements in patients' conditions were recorded for:

• [There is no condition-specific scoring for groin hernia patients.]
• 95.7 per cent of hip replacement respondents (95.8 per cent for 2010-11) ['Oxford Hip Score']
• 91.6 per cent of knee replacement respondents (91.4 per cent for 2010-11) ['Oxford Knee Score']
• 83.1 per cent of varicose vein respondents (82.5 per cent for 2010-11) ['Aberdeen Varicose Vein Questionnaire']

Methodology Change

Figures produced for this and subsequent publications may differ slightly from previous figures in part because of a change in methodology.

• Read about changes to the PROMs methodology

Erratum note, 07 January 2014:

The first edition of this report, published on 15 October 2013, contained some wrong percentages in Table 2 on page 24, although the numbers in the table are believed to all be correct. The document has been re-published with correct percentages in the table. We apologise for any inconvenience.

Footnotes

1. An 'eligible procedure' is counted for each episode in HES in the period in question which has been clinically coded with relevant hip, knee, varicose vein or groin hernia OPCS procedure codes which make it suitable for inclusion into PROMs. Note that some patients may have undergone more than one PROMs procedure in a single eligible episode, hence there will be more procedures than episodes: this is the case for 56 of the 247,699 procedures.
2. Not every pre-operative questionnaire will have a post-operative questionnaire sent out. This may be for a number of reasons including the cancellation of an operation or the death of the patient.