Can we Trust Hospital League Tables

[PatchGirl]

Hospital league tables have been released recently and these show alarming disparities.

Twelve NHS hospital trusts in England are "significantly underperforming", a report by monitoring body Dr Foster has said, despite eight recently having been rated as good or excellent.

The report by monitoring body Dr Foster also said 27 trusts had unusually high death rates.

In this year's report 12 received the lowest score.

They include University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire; Weston Area Health Trust; South London Healthcare Trust; Tameside Hospital Foundation Trust; University Hospital of South Manchester and St Helens and Knowsley Hospitals Trust.

Mid Yorkshire Hospitals Trust; Blackpool, Fylde and Wyre Hospitals Foundation Trust; and Hereford Hospitals Trust are also among the 12, which are completed by Basildon and Thurrock; Lewisham; and Scarborough and North East Yorkshire.

But the Care Quality Commission, rated St Helens and Knowsley as excellent and three others - Mid Yorkshire, Weston Area and Scarborough and North East Yorkshire - were rated fair, with seven of the remainder achieving good ratings.

Shadow health minister Stephen O'Brien told the BBC: "Clearly there needs to be a massive overhaul in the way that the inspection regime is working, because... the failed system of self assessment can't carry on and we need to rip up the performance indicators - above all stop the tick-box targets."

We have a right to know how our hospitals are performing but if we continue to receive so much conflicting information, how will we get the true picture...