The 7th National Audit Project of the Royal College of Anaesthetists (NAP7) will examine perioperative cardiac arrest. Drivers for the choice of topic include the common fear of patients that they ‘might not wake up after their anaesthetic’, our current lack of knowledge on the true incidence of perioperative cardiac arrest, and the fact that the vast majority of perioperative cardiac arrests are not included in the National Cardiac Arrest Audit (NCAA) of in-hospital cardiac arrest.
NAP7 will use a similar structure to previous NAPs: a baseline survey of anaesthetists’ views on perioperative cardiac arrest; an activity survey to measure denominator values; and a registry to enable identification and review of individual cases. Confidentiality, anonymity, and a fair and structured review of individual cases by the panel for the purposes of learning will remain the key tenets.
The current plan is to launch NAP7 in May 2020 and collect data for one year. We are working with stakeholders including VASGBI to agree definitions, inclusion and exclusion criteria, and how and which data will be collected. As with every NAP, the project requires the mass co-operation and involvement of anaesthetists throughout the UK. The success of previous NAPs is a direct consequence of that generous engagement. We hope all UK anaesthetists will get behind NAP7 and make it a success, as you have before.
Please contact the NAP7 team on NAP@rcoa.ac.uk for all inquiries or ideas about NAP7. https://www.nationalauditprojects.org.uk/NAP7-Home
Richard Armstrong, HSRC NAP7 Fellow
Jasmeet Soar, NAP7 Clinical Lead
Tim Cook, Director, RCoA National Audit Programmes
Ronelle Mouton, NAP 7 VASGBI representative