Yes, it is. Most hospitals collect short-term data, and looking at this can be valuable and revealing, giving us important information and statistics about outcomes such as:

• Infections
• Deep vein thrombosis/pulmonary embolisms
• Blood transfusions
• Major bowel or lung complications
• Analgesia use
• Deaths

While these measures are all extremely important, they don’t give us the whole picture.

One key measure we often miss is post-surgical quality of life. This relies on collecting meaningful long-term information about urinary and bowel symptoms, pain, erectile function and continence.

It takes significant effort to collect this data over a minimum of two years, using follow-up questionnaires and dedicated, trained data processing staff.