Frequently Asked Questions

SurgWeek‑2 is an international, prospective, observational cohort study that aims to assess the global burden and variation of postoperative complications. It is open to all surgical specialties worldwide and will include consecutive patients undergoing any operation (elective or emergency) across participating hospitals.

The primary aim is to determine the global variation in 30-day postoperative complications across low-, middle-, and high-income countries.

Any hospital worldwide where surgery is performed is eligible to participate, provided the site secures all necessary local and national study approvals.

All patients (adults and children) undergoing any elective or emergency operation performed in an operating theatre are eligible. Both day-case and inpatient surgery are included. All surgical specialties can participate.

Yes. Patients who do not undergo an operation, patients undergoing angiography, and patients undergoing minor procedures (listed in Appendix A of the protocol) are excluded. Each patient should only be included once, based on the first operation they undergo within the data capture window.

No. It is not mandatory for all specialties to participate in your hospital. You can choose which surgical specialties to participate in the study. However, we do encourage you to engage colleagues from all specialties to set up mini-teams in each specialty and time period if possible.

Data collection runs across six 7-day blocks between 31 August 2026 and 11 October 2026. Each block has a corresponding 30-day follow-up period. The full schedule is available on the home page of the SurgWeek‑2 website.

Hospitals can participate in between one and six blocks. You can choose how many blocks to cover based on your team's capacity.

A mini-team is a group of up to three collaborators who collect data for a given specialty during a given 7-day block. One mini-team may also choose to cover multiple specialties and/or blocks. Sites must ensure there is no overlap and that patients are not captured twice.

Yes, individuals can participate in multiple mini-team periods. However, people can only participate in one hospital.

Data is collected and stored through the secure REDCap web application, hosted by the University of Birmingham. Collaborators are encouraged to enter data directly into REDCap. Alternatively, data can first be recorded on a paper Case Report Form (CRF) and then uploaded to REDCap later. Paper copies must be destroyed as confidential waste once data are uploaded.

Data is collected across several domains: demographics and presentation, emergency and diagnostic pathways, intraoperative variables, postoperative outcomes, and antimicrobial resistance. A full list of data fields and definitions can be found in the appendices of the study protocol.

Follow-up data should be collected from routine hospital records (medical notes, electronic health records, observation charts, drug charts, discharge letters, clinic letters, radiology and microbiology reports, etc.). No change in routine patient care or dedicated telephone or in-person follow-up is required — follow-up relies solely on existing records.

We recommend daily review of theatre logs, daily review of handover sheets, ward or assessment unit entries, and daily discussion with admitting or on-call teams to ensure consecutive patients are captured.

National Leads coordinate the study within their country. Key responsibilities include disseminating the study through national networks, recruiting hospital sites and selecting hospital leads, assessing whether national ethics approval is needed (and obtaining it if so), and facilitating translation of study materials where needed.

Contact your national lead here. If you don't see your country listed, and would like to take on the responsibility of being a national lead, please contact the study team for more information.

The Hospital Lead coordinates the study within their site. They are responsible for securing local ethics/audit approval, selecting Hospital Co-Leads and organising mini-teams, completing the hospital-level site survey, ensuring data completeness, and acting as the primary point of contact at their hospital. The Hospital Lead should be a senior surgeon or anaesthetist (consultant/attending or equivalent).

Hospital Co-Leads support the Hospital Lead in coordinating data collection at the site. They will identify mini-team collaborators for each time period and specialty in their hospital.

Collaborators are responsible for day-to-day data collection within their mini-team, including identifying patients, recording and entering data into REDCap, and completing 30-day follow-up.

Hospital Leads at each participating site are responsible for ensuring all necessary local and national approvals are in place before data collection begins. National Leads can advise on country-specific requirements.

In the UK, SurgWeek‑2 must be registered as a clinical audit or service evaluation — NOT as research. The study is registered as a clinical audit at the lead centre, University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust; the certificate for this can be found in the protocol. When registering locally, emphasise that all data collected measures current practice, there are no changes to patient pathways or treatment, no additional tests or follow-up are required, and only anonymised data is uploaded to the database.

Where possible, register the study as an audit or service evaluation. If your hospital participated in SurgWeek‑1 in 2020, consider whether an amendment to that approval could cover this study — a letter to support this can be found on the SurgWeek‑2 website. If research ethics review is required, consider requesting a waiver for patient consent on the basis that the study is purely observational with no changes to patient care and only anonymised data collected.

Patients should only be consented if this is required by a local or national research ethics committee. If consent is not required locally, it does not need to be sought.

Some hospitals may require a data sharing agreement (DSA). If needed, Hospital Leads should request a template DSA from the steering committee. Please note that DSA terms cannot be individually negotiated due to the volume required globally.

REDCap (Research Electronic Data Capture) is a secure, web-based application for data collection and storage. It has been used successfully in previous large-scale collaborative studies including CovidSurg and GlobalSurg. The REDCap server for SurgWeek‑2 is managed by the University of Birmingham, UK.

You will receive a unique username ending in '.sw2', sent by the study team from a no-reply email starting with 'globalsurgenquiry'. Please save your log-in details in a safe manner. If you have forgotten your password, please use the "Forgot my Password" option. If you cannot find your username, contact the study team at surgweek@contacts.bham.ac.uk.

Yes. No patient-identifiable data is collected on REDCap. All data uploaded to the database is anonymised. Collaborators should maintain a local, secure record linking REDCap record IDs to hospital patient identification numbers (to enable follow-up data entry), but this information must not leave the site. All paper data collection sheets should be destroyed as confidential waste once data are uploaded.

Each collaborator only has access to data entered by their own mini-team. Hospital-level data will not be published in identifiable form.

Yes. All National Leads, Hospital Leads, Hospital Co-Leads, and mini-team collaborators who contribute data reported in a publication will be included as PubMed-citable co-authors on that publication.

If a significant proportion of patients at your site have missing data, the site may not be included in the SurgWeek‑2 dataset and all collaborators' names may be withdrawn from the author list. It is essential that mini-teams ensure data completeness, including the 30-day follow-up.

Yes. All collaborators should register for a free ORCID iD at orcid.org/register (if they do not already have one) and provide this to their Hospital Lead. Your ORCID iD is a unique digital identifier that ensures you are correctly credited regardless of name changes or institutional moves.

Complete the Expression of Interest (EoI) form on REDCap to register your interest in participating. Your National Lead and Hospital Lead will coordinate role assignments from there.

Yes. Any member of hospital staff or student can participate as part of a mini-team. However, for each participating specialty, it is recommended that at least one senior surgeon is involved, either as a Hospital Lead or as a mini-team collaborator.

For country-specific queries, contact your National Lead. A directory of National Leads is available on the Contact Your National Leads page. For site-specific queries, contact your Hospital Lead. For general study queries, email the central study team at surgweek@contacts.bham.ac.uk.

All downloadable resources, including the study protocol, information packs, consent forms, and dissemination materials are available on the Materials page of the SurgWeek‑2 website.