Provisional Monthly Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) in England - April 2012 to March 2013, August 2013 release

Update, 11 Sep 2013:  The Score Comparison tool has been updated to fix a minor issue with the tables in the 'Key Facts - chart' tab which caused some wrong numbers to be displayed for numbers of condition-specific knee and vein questionnaires showing improvement. We apologise for any inconvenience.

For the coverage period 1 April 2012 to 31 March 2013.

Participation and Coverage

• There were 238,379 PROMs-eligible procedures carried out in hospitals¹ and 163,046 pre-operative questionnaires returned so far, a headline participation rate of 68.4 per cent (69.9 per cent for 2010-11)².
• For the 163,046 pre-operative questionnaires returned, 88,178 post-operative questionnaires were sent out³, of which 45,619 have been returned so far - a return rate of 51.7 per cent⁴ (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:

• 49.7 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)
• 79.4 per cent of knee replacement respondents (77.9 per cent for 2010-11)
• 52.7 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:

• 38.1 per cent of groin hernia respondents (39.1 per cent for 2010-11)
• 63.4 per cent of hip replacement respondents (61.4 per cent for 2010-11)
• 54.7 per cent of knee replacement respondents (50.8 per cent for 2010-11)
• 41.4 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.]
• 95.4 per cent of hip replacement respondents (95.8 per cent for 2010-11) ['Oxford Hip Score']
• 92.2 per cent of knee replacement respondents (91.4 per cent for 2010-11) ['Oxford Knee Score']
• 82.6 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

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 48 of the 238,379 procedures.
2. Finalised figures for 2011-12 are not available at the time of the publication.
3. 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.
4. This will be an underestimate of the true rate due to the time delay in returning post-operative questionnaires.