A REVIEW of Peterborough hospitals will be carried out after they were given one of the worst safety ratings in the country in the Dr Foster Health Guide.
The Dr Foster Health Guide revealed that more people are dying than is expected at
Peterborough and Stamford Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust's hospitals, which are Peterborough District, Edith Cavell and Stamford.
In 2008/09, the trust's Hospital Standardised Mortality Ratio (HSMR) was 112.4, meaning that 12.4 per cent of deaths at the hospitals were above what was expected.
The trust's record with heart attack patients was also highlighted, with independent health watchdog Dr Foster giving it a score of 176.33, meaning 76 per cent more heart attack patients died than was expected.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) recently rated the trust's quality of services as "fair", up from "weak" the year previous, but Dr Foster's patient safety score puts the trust at joint 14th from bottom in the country.
Director of nursing Chris Wilkinson said: "The trust is surprised and concerned that it was rated high for its HSMR data, as it constantly monitors hospital mortality and is immediately alerted to any unusual or concerning trends.
"Establishing why the trust reported a higher level of patient mortality is of critical importance, and we have begun a detailed investigation involving colleagues from Dr Foster."
Ms Wilkinson said that Dr Foster changing some of its ratings methods may have impacted on its scores, such as if a surgery patient had an underlying health problem that wasn't included on paperwork, it would go down as a preventable death.
The HSMR is calculated based on details such as patient age, severity of illness and social background, which are used to work out how many patients would be expected to die at each hospital.
This is compared with the number of patients that actually die. If the numbers are the same, the hospital gets a score of 100. If the number is ten per cent more, it gets 110.
The trust refused to reveal how many patients had died in its hospitals in 2008/09.
Related link: Dr Foster's 2009 Hospital Guide - Focus on Patient Safety.
Dr Foster Research - search by hospital.
Peterborough and Stamford Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust's hospitals.
