National Pulmonary Hypertension Audit - 2012

Pulmonary hypertension is a rare disease which occurs at any age, has many causes, and often shortens life expectancy. In the UK, Channel Islands, Gibraltar and Isle of Man seven hospitals have been designated to diagnose and treat pulmonary hypertension in adults and one hospital for children. The National Audit of Pulmonary Hypertension (NAPH) is a prospective audit of processes and outcomes and has the participation of all eight designated centres. This report of the second year brings together the audit data collected from the nationally designated centres (Table 1). It builds on the first report one year ago1 while expanding new areas of information. Since the last report the lack of completeness of some key data fields has been resolved. Database processes have been kept under constant review and improved. New information has been added to this year's report about diagnosis, new referrals and survival of selected diagnostic groups of patients. The data presented in this report is for the year from 1 April 2011 to 31 March 2012 and covers all patients seen at the designated centres. This audit includes England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, the Channel Islands, Gibraltar and the Isle of Man.