NHS League Table exposes failing Trusts

NHS England released its NHS Trust performance league tables this month, with many patients all over the country checking to see where their local hospital lies.

Ranking at the bottom are The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, King’s Lynn NHS Foundation Trust, Countess of Chester Hospital and University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust; with James Paget University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust not much higher. The East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust was also ranked at the bottom of its league table.

Details on how the tables have been calculated can be found on NHS England’s website.

What is clear is that around 107 of the 134 Trusts are failing due to financial deficits or erroneous performance targets. Other assessed criteria include waiting times for surgery, waiting times in A&E and ambulance response times.

The Department of Health and Social Care stated that the tables show “the start of a new era of transparency and accountability in the NHS, with league tables delivering on the government’s promise to drive up standards, tackle variation in care and ensure people get the high-quality service they rightly expect”.

Whilst The Queen Elizabeth Hospital addressed concerns by commenting that “Our patients deserve the highest standards of care, and we are sorry that in some of our performance areas… we have fallen short. Immediate steps are being taken to address the issues.”

Therefore, whilst the tables may be used by patients as a helpful guide in choosing where they receive treatment, it is evident that there are overarching and stark issues such as underfunding, staffing and service levels affecting patient safety that impact all Trusts from top to bottom of the tables.

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