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The National Health Service has launched a new way to identify the performance of their trusts. A league table, issued by the Government, evaluates various criteria such as financial performance and patient access to treatment, alongside reducing surgical waiting lists and A&E delays, plus enhancing ambulance response times.
The launch of the quarterly tables was first announced in November of last year, with top performers receiving greater freedoms and funding. Health Secretary Wes Streeting said the initiative is set to highlight where immediate assistance is required, as well as eliminating the “postcode lottery” of care.
“We must be honest about the state of the NHS to fix it. Patients and taxpayers have to know how their local NHS services are doing compared to the rest of the country,” he added. Next to the rankings for acute trusts, tables for ambulances and non-acute trusts, which provide long-term maintenance and specialist care, have been published as well.
Some providers have voiced their fears that hospitals serving poorer or more isolated areas could be misrepresented. Daniel Elkeles, chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents hospital trust leaders, said: “There’s more work to do before patients, staff and trusts can have confidence that these league tables are accurately identifying the best performing organisations.
“For league tables to really drive up standards, tackle variations in care, and boost transparency, they need to measure the right things, be based on accurate, clear and objective data and avoid measuring what isn’t in individual providers’ gift to improve. Anything less could lead to unintended consequences, potentially damaging patient confidence in local health services, demoralising hardworking NHS staff and skewing priorities.”
Trusts which have been rated in the middle of the table will be encouraged to learn from the top performers to improve their rankings. Senior managers at trusts that consistently rank poorly risk seeing their pay docked, whilst NHS leaders who go into challenged trusts and turn them around have been encouraged with extra pay incentives.
Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said: “We must guard against the risk of perverse incentives and ensure that the metrics used are transparent, relevant, and presented clearly. Poorly constructed tables could mislead patients or invite misplaced scrutiny from politicians and the media. To be truly effective, league tables must be objective, reflect what matters most to the public, and avoid penalising high-performing trusts that are contributing to wider system recovery. Above all, they should support improvement, not undermine it.”
The rating shows Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King’s Lynn in bottom position for acute trusts, followed by the Countess of Chester Hospital and University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire. The leading acute hospital is London’s Moorfield Eye Hospital’s trust, with the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital Trust, also located in the capital, taking second place. Third position goes to The Christie NHS Foundation Trust in Manchester, which houses Europe’s largest specialist single-site cancer hospital.
Rankings for individual hospital trusts can be found in this interactive table:
