Dr Ravi De Silva (Papworth Hospital NHS Foundation Trust)
Many factors influence patient outcomes after surgery.1,2 Broadly speaking these may be categorised into factors present prior to hospital admission (e.g. comorbidities), factors occurring during the operation (e.g. technical error, unexpected operative findings), and factors occurring post-operatively (e.g. infections, medication error). A single individual is not able to control all of these variables, so patient deaths should not be attributed to an individual. The public may also be unaware that there exists great variation in the quantity and quality of staffing, expertise and equ