National Adult Cardiac Surgery Audit (NACSA)

Welcome to the homepage of the National Adult Cardiac Surgery Audit (NACSA). The National Adult Cardiac Surgery Audit (NACSA) collects data on all major heart operations carried out in NHS hospitals and a selection of private hospitals throughout the UK.

What is Adult Cardiac Surgery?

Adult Cardiac Surgery includes all procedures performed on patients aged 18 or over that involve the heart or structures attached to the heart. For the purposes of this Audit we report on operations that involve surgically opening the chest wall and usually the pericardium (the sac around the heart). The most common of these procedures are: Coronary Artery Bypass Grafts (CABG), Valve surgery, operations on the Thoracic Aorta, or a combination of these.

Procedures on the heart performed with catheters (tubes inserted via arteries or veins to access the heart) are usually performed by interventional cardiologists rather than surgeons. These are included in several other national audits overseen by NICOR and are therefore not included here.

National Adult Cardiac Surgery Audit (NASCA)

The 2024 NACSA report (coming soon) looks at all procedures undertaken in NHS cardiac surgery centres, as well as three private hospitals and one from the Republic of Ireland.  The data spans a three-year period, between 1st April 2020 to 31st March 2023.

This provides an overview of the state of cardiac surgery in the UK during this timeframe (such as activity and trends), as well as reporting on several Quality measures.

The data are complete for all NHS work in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland.  Scotland has chosen to audit its own data since 2020/21, so the three Scottish hospitals no longer contribute to NACSA. Information from the Scottish Cardiac Audit Programme can be found via their website.  Data is also missing from three private providers that chose to not take part during the last three years (2020/23).

The format of the report is new this year.  It is presented as a series of interactive slides allowing readers to see the main trends and metrics more easily.  It is also designed to allow users to select and explore data points that interest them.  The most important trends and metrics are contained in the main report.  For those wanting to explore the data more deeply an appendix containing greater detail and supplementary information is also provided.

Previous reports for Adult Cardiac Surgery (NASCA) are available to download via the Previous reports page.

Project Manager: Samuel Perwaiz

Project Coordinator: Jane Kerr

Contact email: nicor.auditenquiries@nhs.net