National Congenital Heart Disease Audit Report 2012 – 2015
Congenital heart disease refers to any defect of the heart present from birth. It includes structural defects, congenital arrhythmias, and cardiomyopathies. Acquired heart disease develops after birth and examples of heart disease developed in childhood include inflammatory heart disease such as rheumatic heart disease.
At least 8 in every 1,000 babies are born with a heart or circulatory condition and only a quarter of these are currently detected by antenatal ultrasound scans. Congenital heart disease is relatively rare and requires specialist clinicians who have experience in treating paediatric and adult patients. Congenital heart disease services are a relatively small speciality accounting for just over 1% of NHS of specialised commissioning budget. Services are concentrated in a small number of centres to ensure there are a sufficient number of procedures to develop skills, experience, organisational processes and are on close proximity to other specialist services.
The National Congenital Heart Disease Audit (NCHDA) collects data from all centres undertaking congenital cardiac surgery and interventional procedures in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland (RoI). The audit focuses on monitoring activity levels and outcomes following cardiovascular procedures and the success of cardiovascular antenatal diagnostic screening.
The audit aims to improve the quality of specialist congenital cardiovascular care by providing reliable data on activity levels, access to antenatal diagnosis and patient outcomes. Since 2007, the audit has published detailed results on the National Congenital Heart Disease Audit portal. The report supplements the detailed results published on the portal and summarise the key findings.
