The Section undertook a snapshot audit of ESWL practice in the UK during 2016 & 2017. The aim of this audit was to gain an idea of the "real life" efficacy of treatment, away from the large single-centre experiences reported in the literature.
We hoped that these data would help us develop standards for ESWL in the UK and Ireland. This in turn may help in the process of service rationalisation, as well as providing the opportunity to gather further data prospectively, thus ensuring safe and efficient ESWL services are maintained, and allowing Departments the opportunity to analyse their own outcome data regularly.
All UK and Ireland Urology departments undertaking ESWL were requested to:
There were data collection time-points:
- October 2016: initial recruitment of the first 10 new EDSWL cases (the first 10 consecutive new renal stone cases treated with ESWL)
- January 2017: 3-month review of all recruited cases
- April 2017: 6-month revioew of all recruited cases
o ensure patient confidentiality was not compromised, departments were requested to keep a secure log of patient identifiers on a local database. Once submitted, each of the cases listed on the spreadsheet was assigned a study number. Patient identifiable data such as patient NHS number or date of birth was not entered on the spreadsheet used on audit returns.
This was an exciting opportunity to gather clinically useful information and inform best practice
For further information and any queries please contact by email.
Ben Grey, Richard Napier-Hemy, Oliver Wiseman, Andrew Dickinson & Daron Smith
On behalf of the BAUS Section of Endourology Committee