The government has published league tables ranking every NHS hospital trust in England to help raise standards and show where care is falling short.
The tables rank all 205 trusts in England on 30 measures including A&E performance, waiting times for planned treatment, finances and mental health services. They will be updated every three months.
Moorfields Eye Hospital in London tops the first table, while Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King’s Lynn, Norfolk, is at the bottom.
Trusts were given an overall score based on the measures and placed into four segments, ranging from the best performers in the first segment to the most pressured in the fourth. To allow fairer comparisons, they were also grouped into three categories – acute, non-acute and ambulance.
We’ve built a searchable table so you can see how your local NHS trust ranked. It shows the trust’s type, its performance segment and overall score, with lower scores meaning stronger performance.
Rank – average performance across NHS priorities like waiting times, patient access, ambulance response, and finances.
Type – trust size or specialism.
Performance – NHS segmentation 1 to 4 (1 is best, 4 is lowest).
Score – combined NHS performance score – lower is stronger.
The NHS said the league tables will be used to drive improvement, with the highest-rated trusts set to gain Foundation Trust status from next year. That would give them more control over services and allow them to reinvest surpluses in things like new equipment and hospital upgrades. Trusts in the middle will be expected to learn from stronger performers, while those in the lowest bands will get extra support and face closer scrutiny.
Under plans already announced, senior NHS leaders will have pay tied to performance, with higher salaries offered to those who take on struggling trusts and pay cuts for those who oversee persistent failings.
Health Secretary Wes 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 practice 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. We’re combining the extra £26 billion investment each year with tough reforms to get value for money, with every pound helping to cut waiting times for patients.”
Chief Executive of the NHS Confederation Matthew Taylor said: “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.”
Featured image via Shutterstock.
