The best and worst-performing NHS trusts in England have been ranked by the Department of Health and Social Care for the first time ever.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting said the quarterly rankings will pinpoint where urgent support is needed and help end the ‘postcode lottery’ for care in England.
The rankings are based on finances and patient access to care, as well as bringing down waiting times for operations and A&E, and improving ambulance response times.
Top performers will be given greater freedoms and investment, the DHSC said.
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The top and bottom performers
Number one is Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, followed by the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Trust, and The Christie NHS Foundation Trust.
The best-performing large hospital trust is Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, which came in at number nine.
Among the worst-performing trusts are Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust, Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust, Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, and Devon Partnership Trust.
Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust was ranked bottom of the table.
Senior managers at trusts that are persistently ranked poorly could see pay cuts, but NHS leaders will have extra pay incentives to go into challenged trusts and turn them around.
Meanwhile, those in the middle will be encouraged to learn from trusts at the top to help them improve their rankings.
Streeting said: ‘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.’
The new rankings come after the British Medical Association (BMA) announced that doctors in their first year of training in England will be balloted over the prospect of industrial action over a lack of places for doctors in training.
Expanding the number of training places could also form part of ongoing talks with the Government as ministers and the BMA’s Resident Doctors Committee try to break the stalemate in the ongoing row over pay.
Next summer, the tables will be expanded to cover integrated care boards, which are responsible for planning health services at a local level, and wider areas of NHS performance.
Sir James Mackey, chief executive of NHS England, said he hopes the data will help ‘drive improvement even faster’.
But the rankings haven’t been met with full support. Danielle Jefferies, senior analyst at The King’s Fund, said rankings ‘cannot give the public a meaningful understanding of how good or bad a hospital is’.
She said the tables, while helpful, hide the variation in performance across different hospital departments.
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