Britain’s 15 ‘deadliest’ hospitals, where the number of patient deaths is far higher than it should be, have been revealed in an official report.
The worrying data shows some NHS hospitals suffered more than 50 per cent more patient deaths than expected between April 2023 and March this year.
Health analysts said this is not a measure of poor care, but the increased number of deaths is a “smoke alarm” that calls for further investigation.
Of the 15 trusts in England where these ‘smoke alarms’ are going off, seven have previously been identified as such.
Royal Surrey County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust recorded the highest number of excess hospital deaths in the report, at 53 per cent more than expected.
MailOnline can reveal the 15 NHS trusts with hospitals that have an alarming number of patient deaths, far higher than should be expected
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Royal Surrey County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust recorded the highest level of excess patient deaths than expected, with 53 per cent more patient deaths than expected. However, the Trust has insisted the data is inaccurate
The NHS England report is based on a calculation that takes into account the number of deaths expected to be recorded in a facility over a given period and the actual number.
The expected death toll is based on average annual figures and on characteristics, such as age, of the patients treated.
The patient deaths in the data include both patients who die in the hospital and patients who die within 30 days of hospital discharge.
In the case of Royal Surrey, the Trust recorded 1,335 deaths in the reporting period, compared to a predicted 875.
When we contacted the Trust they insisted the data was incorrect, but no alternative figures were provided.
East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust followed, with 32 per cent more deaths than expected, 2,290 compared to the expected 1,735.
County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust completed the top three with 24 per cent more deaths than predicted, 3,270 compared to the expected 2,640.
In total, 15 hospitals reported higher than expected patient deaths in the NHS report, about 7.5 per cent of the 119 hospitals in England for which data was available.
But these seven trusts also recorded a higher than expected number of deaths in the previous report covering April 2022 to March 2023.
There were the university hospitals of Norfolk and Norwich, the university hospitals of Epsom and St Helier, the hospitals of East Cheshire, Doncaster and Bassetlaw, the teaching hospitals of Medway and Leeds, and the counties of Durham and Darlington.
In that year’s report, only 10 hospitals recorded a ‘smoke alarm’ level of higher than expected patient deaths, meaning the number has increased this year.
In total, the NHS recorded 290,000 patient deaths in this year’s report, compared to 260,000 the year before.
While most hospitals recorded a higher or as expected number of patient deaths, 13 hospitals had a lower number of patient deaths than the NHS expected.
Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust recorded the biggest difference in this category, with 29 per cent fewer patient deaths than expected, at 1,735 deaths compared to the expected 2,430.
This was followed by Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust with 27 percent fewer deaths (2,100) and Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust with 23 percent fewer (2,490) than expected.
Royal Surrey indicated that there was a data quality issue and that their values for this period should be ‘ignored’.
The Trust’s medical director, William Jewsbury, said: ‘The data report… for our Trust is incorrect due to a data quality issue when uploading it to the national team at NHS England.
‘This data error has been identified and the correct data has been uploaded, but could not be corrected nationally before publication.’
He added that data from previous years showed this year’s figure was a “clear anomaly” for the trust.
NHS England also confirmed that Royal Surrey is having problems recording secondary diagnoses, conditions such as high blood pressure that can contribute to death, in patients.
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This meant that the deaths recorded on paper were in healthier people than would hypothetically be expected, which in turn increased the patient death rates in the report.
Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said it continues to examine the data underlying these figures and the care provided to patients.
However, they added that the NHS figures also reflected The mortality rate in hospitals for both planned and emergency admissions ‘remains the same as or lower than the national average’.
A spokesperson for County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust said they had experienced ‘challenges’ with their data, acknowledging that the number of patient deaths in the report was higher than expected. ‘We want to reassure you that we have robust processes in place to continually monitor the quality of care for deceased patients.’
They indicated that a review of their patient death data processing has revealed a number of shortcomings that could be improved and they have planned further work in this area.
The other hospitals where the number of patient deaths was higher than expected were approached for comment.
While the report did not give reasons for the higher than expected number of deaths, emergency medicine specialists have previously warned that long waits in emergency rooms led to 300 deaths a week last year.
This comes as separate figures from the NHS show the health service is in trouble on multiple fronts.
The latest data, for June, shows that in England last month only 75.2 per cent of patients were seen in A&E within four hours.
While this is an improvement on previous figures, it is still below the NHS target of 78 per cent. It is now three years since A&E performance has been at this level.
It has also been four years since the national average response time of 18 minutes for ambulances to emergencies such as heart attacks and strokes was achieved.
The current average response time for such emergencies in England is 33 minutes and 35 seconds.
In England, too, waiting lists for routine healthcare treatments have increased for the third month in a row.
It is estimated that there were 7.62 million treatments in the queue at the end of June, of which 6.39 million were patients.
This is an increase compared to the 7.60 million treatments and 6.37 million registered patients at the end of May.
The figures are still lower than the record high of 7.77 million treatments and 6.5 million registered patients in September 2023, but the total has been rising again since April.
The figures for cancer treatments also lag behind the targets: only 67.4 percent of patients start treatment within 62 days of an emergency referral.
While this is an improvement on the previous monthly figure, it is still well below the target of 85 percent.
