Over 30,000 people are diagnosed with bowel cancer annually in England. 1 in 5 are diagnosed after an emergency hospital admission. Most of these require emergency surgery but this is high-risk as 1 in 8 patients die from surgery. To discover which aspects of care affect these patients' outcomes, information is required from several separate datasets.
However, linking together multiple datasets is not straightforward. We are developing improved methods for linking multiple datasets and identify aspects of care with the greatest impact on patient outcomes. Our findings will help hospitals and clinicians to improve care for patients undergoing emergency bowel surgery.