Welcome to the National Emergency Laparotomy Audit (NELA)
NELA aims to enable the
improvement of the quality of care for patients undergoing, or considered for, emergency
laparotomy through the provision of high quality comparative data from
all providers of emergency laparotomy in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
NELA is being carried out by the
Royal College of Anaesthetist’s Centre for Research and Improvement, in conjunction with surgical and other key
stakeholders.
Data Collection Updates
Beginning 1st April, NELA will launch our Year 12 dataset for EmLap and our Year 2 dataset for NoLap. Question sets are largely unchanged from the current year. Standards of care being audited against for these patients remain unchanged from the current year. You can find all related documents here.
The locking deadline for Year 11 EmLap and Year 1 NoLap is 31st May 2025--we expect all eligible cases to be entered and locked on the system by this date for annual analysis. Cases entered/locked after this date may not be included in the analysis or count toward your annual compliance.
NoLap Resources
We've created several resources local teams can use to help progress the NoLap workstream locally. These include:
NoLap Poster
Top Tips
Webinars
Patient Leaflet - Recovering Well
Clinicians from Cardiff and Vale Health Board, in collaboration with the NELA team, have created a leaflet for patients for what to expect after surgery. We think this is a hugely valuable resource and we hope you will share it with your patients, or let them know where they can find it. It is now available on our website: ../information/nelappi
Improving Timeliness to Emergency Laparotomy Project
The RCoA, in collaboration with The Healthcare Improvement Studies (THIS) Institute at the University of Cambridge, are designing a project aimed at improving timeliness to theatre for emergency laparotomy patients. For more details on the project, see https://rcoa.ac.uk/research/research-projects/improving-timeliness-emergency-laparotomy
RCEM Statement regarding the management of adult patients in the ED who may require an emergency laparotomy
The Royal College of Emergency Medicine have released new guidance for the management of adults presenting to ED who may require an emergency laparotomy. You can find the full document here, which includes recommendations for how to manage these patients.
Quick Links
- QI Resources, including timelines for monthly reports and repository of monthly reports, can be found on our QI Resources page.
- NELA QI Videos - Watch the full series of NELA Quality Improvement animations, showing you how to use your data for local improvement.
