Britain’s 15 “deadliest” hospitals, where patient deaths are far higher than they should be, have been revealed in an official report.
Worrying data shows some NHS trusts recorded 50 per cent more patient deaths than expected between April 2023 and March this year.
Health service analysts said that while this is not a measure of poor care, these high patient deaths serve as a “smoke alarm” that requires further investigation.
However, of the 15 trusts in England where these “smoke alarms” are sounding, seven had been flagged in a previous alert.
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 would be expected
The Royal Surrey County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust recorded the highest level of patient deaths than expected, with 53 per cent more patient deaths than expected. However, the Trust has insisted its data is incorrect.
The report, from NHS England, is based on a calculation that takes into account the number of deaths expected to occur in a trust over a given period and the actual number.
This expected death toll is based on average annual figures as well as characteristics, such as age, of the patients treated.
Patient deaths in the data include both those who die in the hospital and those who die within 30 days of being discharged.
In the case of Royal Surrey, the Trust recorded 1,335 deaths in the reporting period, compared with the 875 expected.
When we contacted the Trust, it insisted the data was incorrect but did not provide alternative figures.
This was followed by East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust, with 32 per cent more deaths than expected, 2,290 compared with the 1,735 expected.
County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust rounded out the top three with 24 per cent more deaths than expected, 3,270 compared with the 2,640 expected.
In total, 15 trusts had a higher than expected number of patient deaths in the NHS report, around 7.5 per cent of the 119 in England for which data was available.
But these seven trusts also recorded higher deaths than expected in the previous report from April 2022 to March 2023.
There were the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals, the Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals, the East Cheshire, Doncaster and Bassetlaw Hospitals, the Medway and Leeds University Hospitals, and the Durham and Darlington County Hospitals.
In that year’s report, only 10 trusts recorded “smoke alarm” levels of patient deaths higher than expected, meaning the number has risen this year.
In total, the NHS recorded 290,000 patient deaths in this year’s report, up from 260,000 the year before.
While most trusts recorded more or equal to the expected number of patient deaths, 13 trusts had fewer patient deaths than the NHS expected.
Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS trust had the largest such gap, recording 29 per cent fewer patient deaths than expected – 1,735 deaths compared with the expected 2,430.
This was followed by Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust with 27 per cent fewer deaths (2,100) and Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust with 23 per cent fewer (2,490) than expected.
Royal Surrey said a data quality issue meant its figures for this period “should be ignored”.
The trust’s medical director, William Jewsbury, said: ‘The data reporting… from our trust is incorrect due to a data quality issue with uploading to the national team in NHS England.
‘This data error has been acknowledged and the correct data has been uploaded, but it could not be corrected at a national level before publication.’
He added that data from previous years showed this year’s figure for the trust was a “clear anomaly”.
NHS England also confirmed that Royal Surrey has had a problem with recording secondary diagnoses – conditions such as high blood pressure that can contribute to death – among patients.
This meant that the deaths recorded on paper were in healthier people than would be hypothetically expected, driving up the patient death figures in the report.
Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said it is continuing to investigate the data contributing to these figures, as well as the care provided to patients.
They added, however, that NHS figures also confirm the The hospital mortality rate, for both elective and emergency admissions, “remains at or below the national average.”
A spokesperson for County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust said it had experienced “challenges” with its data and while it acknowledged that patient deaths in the report are higher than expected, “we would like to provide assurance that we have robust processes in place that consistently review the quality of care provided to patients who have died.”
They added that a review of their processing of data on patient deaths had identified some shortcomings that could be improved and that they have further work planned in this area.
Other trusts with higher than expected levels of patient deaths have been contacted for comment.
While the report does not highlight the reasons for the higher-than-expected deaths, emergency care specialists have previously warned that long waits in emergency rooms were linked to 300 deaths a week last year.
This comes as other NHS figures show the health service is struggling on multiple fronts.
The latest figures, for June, show that just 75.2 per cent of patients in England were seen within four hours in A&E last month.
While this represents an improvement on previous figures, it is still short of the 78 per cent target the NHS has set itself, and it has been three years since A&E performance was at this level.
It has also been four years since the national average response time of 18 minutes was reached for ambulances to reach emergencies such as heart attacks and strokes.
The current average response time for such emergencies in England is 33 minutes and 35 seconds.
The waiting list for routine healthcare treatments in England also increased for the third consecutive month.
It is estimated that at the end of June there were 7.62 million treatments pending, corresponding to 6.39 million patients.
This represents an increase from the 7.60 million treatments and 6.37 million patients registered at the end of May.
The figures are still below the record peak of 7.77 million treatments and 6.5 million patients recorded in September 2023, but the total has been increasing since April.
Cancer treatment figures also remain below target: the proportion of patients starting treatment within 62 days of an urgent referral is only 67.4 percent.
While this is an improvement on the previous monthly figure, it is still well below the 85 percent target.