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.