The government said the plan will help reform the health service, but industry experts beg to differ.
Today (9th September) the Department of Health and Social Care announced the launch of league tables ranking every NHS trust in England. The decision is part of Labour’s 10-year health plan to reform the service.
‘We must be honest about the state of the NHS to fix it,’ health secretary Wes 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 tables rank hospital trusts on a scale of one to four, with one reflecting the best performers and four showing the worst. The government said each trust will be assessed quarterly and services such as mental health support, emergency care and elective operations will be examined.
Trusts who are discovered to be delivering top-quality care will be rewarded, whereas those found to be underperforming will receive targeted support.
To ensure fair comparisons, each hospital in England has been grouped into acute, non-acute and ambulance trusts.
Sir Jim Mackey, chief executive of NHS England, said the launch of the new initiative will help put ‘more power’ in patients hands ‘to make informed decisions on their choice of provider’.
‘Letting patients and the public access more data will help to drive improvement even faster by supporting them to identify where they should demand even better from their NHS,’ Mackey added.
However, Hugh Alderwick, director of policy at The Health Foundation, said the new ratings ‘need to be used as a way to support struggling organisations to improve, rather than another tool for top-down control and performance management.’
‘League tables are not new in the NHS and past experience is distinctly mixed,’ Alderwick continued. ‘Evidence shows that overall organisational ratings like these can improve performance in the areas measured, but they can also have negative effects, such as gaming or distortion of local priorities. For example, if financial performance is central to getting a good rating and unlocking extra investment, this could undermine performance in other areas crucial for patient care.
‘Negative ratings can impact organisational culture, staff morale, and recruitment, which could — perversely — worsen performance further and impact patient care. There are also big technical issues: ratings are complex to design and risk concealing more than they reveal. This can reduce trust in the ratings and reduce their value for improving care.’
Access to the league tables, which are looking to cover integrated care boards by summer 2026, can be found here.
Image via Shutterstock
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