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Heart units in England and Wales have signed up to the most rigorous and transparent regime ever for testing their performance.

And their performance, in terms of survival rates, is within the range expected.

Last year, heart surgeons joined forces with the healthcare watchdog, the Healthcare Commission, to make survival rates from surgery available through a public website.

In the past 12 months the site has become increasingly well-regarded, receiving thousands of visitors each month and allowing patients to make more informed decisions about their treatment.

Survival rates for heart surgery in 2005/06 have now been collated and the site updated. Some of the data have also been adjusted according to a new UK model for calculating expected survival rates.

Last year, the EuroSCORE model was used. This is an internationally recognised system that calculates expected survival rates for heart surgery, taking into account factors such as a patient's age and the severity of his or her illness. This process is called 'risk-adjustment'.

This tempered concerns that simply publishing crude rates of survival or death without any such adjustments would deter surgeons from operating on patients that are higher risk - the very people who are most in need of the best surgeons.

There have been suggestions, however, that EuroSCORE is becoming outdated (given recent improvements in technology and surgical and anaesthetic techniques), and that this leads to the majority of hospitals achieving 'better than expected' survival rates.

Keen to become as open and transparent as possible, heart surgery units in the UK therefore agreed to put some of this year's figures through a new, 'tougher' model for the website's annual update. This allows patients to see how the units have performed against recent standards in the UK as well giving an idea of their performance against accepted European standards.

Survival rates for the two most common heart operations - heart bypass and aortic valve replacement - were calculated using the new model. Every unit had satisfactory survival rates.

Nationally, the survival rate for heart bypass operations remained 'better than expected'. Between April 2005 and March 2006 there were 20,773 such operations in England and Wales: 98.4% of patients survived, above the expected range of 97.74% to 98.32%.

And a survival rate of 98.03% for the 3,504 patients undergoing aortic valve operations was comfortably within the expected range of 96.63% to 98.20%.

Professor Sir Ian Kennedy, Chairman of the Healthcare Commission, said:

"Trust between patients and doctors depends on reliable and meaningful information. Historically, it has not always been easy to obtain. This voluntary agreement by those working in cardiac surgery demonstrates how far we have come.

"Thirty eight units performing heart surgery in the UK have now signed up to the website. Moreover, they have taken the bold step of moving away from the EuroSCORE system. All involved deserve our congratulations.

"The new model, for measuring performance in light of the relevant risks, raises the bar in terms of assessing the quality of heart surgery in the UK. It also sets a marker for other disciplines. Our target must be to give greater information and confidence to any who have to undergo operations of any kind.

"We've made a start with heart surgery; others should follow."

Professor Sir Bruce Keogh, President of the Society for Cardiothoracic Surgery, added:

"Our specialty has achieved what many considered unachievable. We have spectacular, internationally competitive and highly consistent results across all units in the UK, despite patients being older and sicker and having much more complex operations than ever before."

As well as the new data for 2006, the website has also been 'cleaned up', removing any jargon and making it as user-friendly as possible.

Information now available on the website includes:

· EuroSCORE survival rates for all heart surgery and the two major heart operations in 2005/06 and in the three years to March 2006

· EuroSCORE survival rates for 186 individual surgeons

· UK-adjusted survival rates for the two major heart operations in

2005/06 and in the three years to March 2006

Notes to Editors:

The website, complete with new 2005/06 data can be found at:

http://heartsurgery.healthcarecommission.org.uk/

The website does not predict an individual's chance of surviving heart surgery.

For media enquiries or to arrange an interview, please contact David Burrows, at the Healthcare Commission on 020 7448 9439 (07779 990845 after hours).

About the Healthcare Commission

· The Healthcare Commission is the independent inspection body for both the NHS and the private and voluntary healthcare sectors. It exists to promote improvements in the quality of healthcare in England and Wales

· The Healthcare Commission has a legal obligation under the Health and Social Care Act 2003 to report significant failings to the Secretary of State; this may also include recommendations for special measures.  Special measures are designed to generate improvements where other methods have failed, or are considered likely to do so.

· The Healthcare Commission has 15 commissioners and is chaired by Professor Sir Ian Kennedy who was chairman of the public inquiry into children's heart surgery at Bristol Royal Infirmary, published in 2001

· Its roles in England include:

- assessment of performance of health service providers against Government standards

- investigation of serious failures in healthcare services

- independent review of complaints about the NHS which have not been resolved locally

- rating the performance of NHS hospitals and trusts

- publication of an annual report on healthcare performance Further information on the Healthcare Commission is available on www.healthcarecommission.org.uk

About the Society of Cardiothoracic Surgeons

· The Society of Cardiothoracic Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland was set up by the profession to develop cardiothoracic surgery. It is often referred to as the Society or SCTS.

· It represents the views of Cardiothoracic surgeons on all major topics of interest in the specialty. It develops guidelines on clinical management, working practices.

· The Society has taken a lead in data collection and analysis for over 25 years. Cardiothoracic surgery is the only medical or surgical specialty in the UK to have comprehensive data on activity and outcomes.

· With the Royal College of Surgeons the Society helps monitor standards and investigate problems that are highlighted by this. It has taken the lead in developing a system of Quality Assurance for the Hospitals involved in Cardiothoracic Surgery.

· Why all the interest in heart surgery outcomes? After Bristol, the quality and safety of heart surgery has attracted much attention. The media and the public, as well as the profession, have started to look quite carefully at the outcome of heart operations.

· Heart surgery is exceptional amongst medical specialties in three ways:

1. Most heart surgery consists of a handful of operations, and over half of these are just one type of operation: coronary artery bypass grafting or CABG.

2. Because these are big operations, which carry some risk of death, it is relatively easy to produce figures for the death rate of certain procedures.

3. Death is a very solid, objective outcome (no-one can argue about it).

For these reasons, heart surgery lends itself easily to analysis, even by amateurs. It is not surprising that the specialty has become the first focus of initiatives to measure quality of medical treatment.

· Further information on the Society of Cardiothoracic Surgeons is available at: www.scts.org