NATIONAL SUMMARY DATA

This file contains summaries of data around circumcision practice and complications in England and Scotland. The A&E datasets are without denominator but there are also datasets from hospitals which have provided full admission details from their own circumcisions (including therapeutic coded and Z412 Ritual/Routine coded) in some cases for up to 90 days. Readmission diagnosis has allowed the weeding out of non relevant readmissions. All this data is important - it reveals that NHS Choices is not telling the truth in saying that complications of male circumcision are 'rare'. My data suggests that even within 30 days you can expect a relevant readmissions rate in children of >4% following circumcision - it can run much higher.The data is from freedom of info requests, mostly generated through queries of hospital/funder databases - it's good quality and it's useful to note it matches findings from more mainstream/commercial sources such as Dr Foster, as well as many published series. The widely varying incidence of therapeutic circumcision indicates there is a real problem with bad practice in this area - admitted verbally by paediatric urologists and in print by urology associations. The complication rates simply underline how important it is that this gets addressed: unnecessary surgery has a financial toll on the NHS as well as a presumed personal toll on the child and their family. A concern of mine is why does the NHS lie about the complication rates on NHS Choices? I was first concerned about this some years ago when making a complaint about their assertion (via Leeds urologist Benjamiin Squires) that child circumcision does not require anaesthetic. This concern was taken seriously and the claim removed - but the question remains in my mind (and I hope will in yours) about whether there is bias being allowed to creep into NHS Choices editorial?