Methods

To be granted BSGE annual accreditation as an endometriosis centre, criteria must be met including a minimum number of complex surgical cases, multidisciplinary team involvement and submission of an exemplar surgical video. Auditing is performed annually and case numbers per surgeon must be adequate for each centre to maintain its accreditation each year. At least 12 cases of laparoscopic surgical excision of rectovaginal endometriosis requiring dissection of the pararectal space per surgeon are required, and any such case must be registered on the national BSGE database.
Annual audits of the BSGE database were obtained from the BSGE endometriosis centres committee including data from all accredited centres from 2017 – 2020 inclusive to analyse the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Data included the number of operations performed annually at each centre and the type of bowel surgery performed. Region-level data on operations were aggregated according to the region of the centre at which the operations were performed. Centres from outside the UK were excluded, as well as Northern Ireland due to lack of data.
Data on regional COVID deaths were obtained from publicly available data compiled by the UK Office of National Statistics (ONS) and the National Registry of Scotland. Regional population estimates were obtained from the ONS and used to calculate registered COVID deaths per 1000 population. Statistical analysis was performed using Pearson r correlation coefficient and Chi2 goodness-of-fit test in R with the Base package. Graphs were plotted in R using RStudio with the GGPLOT2 package, and regional mapping templates were obtained from the ONS.