A league table on hospital performances has been published, revealing some of the best and worst NHS trusts in the capital.
The Department of Health and Social Care has published the league table for the first time, with some of London’s health services coming out top.
The best performing acute hospital trust in London was Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, which ranked first nationally, followed by the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Trust and the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust.
The University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust was the fourth highest ranked acute trust in the capital followed by the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust.
The worst ranking acute trust in London was Hillingdon Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, followed by Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust, Lewisham & Greenwich NHS Trust, King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Barts Health NHS Trust and Croydon Health Services NHS Trust.
Trusts are ranked within their category on a range of measures, including finances, reducing waiting times for treatment and A&E departments, cancer treatment and waits for diagnostic tests. The lower the score, the better the performance.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting said the quarterly rankings will pinpoint where urgent support is needed and help end the “postcode lottery” of care for patients.
Mr 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 practices 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.”
Top performers will be given greater freedoms and investment, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said.
Sir James Mackey, chief executive of NHS England, said giving patients access to more data “will help to drive improvement even faster by supporting them to identify where they should demand even better from their NHS”.
Chris McCann, deputy chief executive of Healthwatch England, said: “People want clarity on how their local NHS is doing.
“But if a service is struggling, transparency must come with accountability. Patients need to know what’s being done to fix the problem, and when it will improve.”
However, Danielle Jefferies, senior analyst at The King’s Fund, questioned the helpfulness of the tables, warning that hospital performance varies across different departments within the same hospital and is “not as simple as good or bad”
The new league tables follow the publication of an NHS England online dashboard which aims to give the public more information on how local health services compare.
