Health Secretary Wes Streeting says his league table will pinpoint where support is needed but some fear hospitals serving tougher patches could be wrongly blamed
The worst performing NHS trusts in England have been named and shamed in a new Government league table.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting said the move will pinpoint where urgent support is needed and help end the “postcode lottery” of care but experts have warned hospitals serving tougher patches might be wrongly blamed. The table scores NHS trusts on a range of measures including finances and patient access to care, as well as bringing down waiting times for operations and A&E, and improving ambulance response times.
Bottom of the league of acute hospital trusts is the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King’s Lynn, followed by the Countess of Chester Hospital and then University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire.
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The top acute hospital is London’s Moorfield Eye Hospital’s trust, followed by the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital Trust which is also based in the capital. In third place is The Christie NHS Foundation Trust in Manchester which includes the biggest specialist single-site cancer hospital in Europe.
The launch of the quarterly tables was announced in November and top performers will be given greater freedoms and funding. Mr Streeting said: “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.
“These league tables will identify where urgent support is needed and allow high-performing areas to share best practices with others, taking the best of the NHS to the rest of the NHS. Patients know when local services aren’t up to scratch and they want to see an end to the postcode lottery – that’s what this Government is doing.”
Separate tables will be published from today for acute, non-acute and ambulance trusts. Among ambulance trusts, North West Ambulance Service came top and the East of England Ambulance Service came bottom.
However there are fears that those serving poorer or more isolated areas will be stigmatised. 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 in mid-table will be encouraged to learn from trusts at the top to help them improve their rankings. Senior managers at trusts that are persistently ranked poorly could see their pay docked, while NHS leaders will have extra pay incentives to go into challenged trusts and turn them around.
Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said league tables “must not become instruments of blame”. He 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.”
Chris McCann, Deputy Chief Executive of Healthwatch England said: “People want clarity on how their local NHS is doing, and they’ll welcome anything that makes that easier to understand. But if a service is struggling, transparency must come with accountability. Patients need to know what’s being done to fix the problem, and when it will improve.”