Maintain pressure on reforms to protect NHSCall to investigate excessive death rates
Excessive death rates at 25 hospital trusts should be probed by the Government, one of Britain’s leading experts on the subject has said.
The Department for Health insisted it is already taking “tough” action against underperforming hospitals after Professor Sir Brian Jarman said thousands more patients had died between 2007 and 2008 than would normally be expected.
Sir Jarman, a former member of an inquiry into the deaths of heart patients at Bristol Royal Infirmary who is now an emeritus professor at London’s Imperial College School of Medicine, said that after 10 years of “no action, I needed to say something”.
He warned current regulation is “fundamentally flawed” but added that high death rates do not necessarily prove hospitals are doing anything wrong.
He said: “My main concern is that the Government only focuses on self-inspection rather than launching wider inquiries. That is why I have decided to take action.
“An investigation may not prove anything is being done wrong but it could still boost our ability to reduce death rates.”
Sir Brian said each of the trusts he highlighted had at least 150 more deaths than expected in the year 2007-08. Across the 25 trusts, there were 4,600 unexpected deaths in total.
The Government defended its record on hospital regulation.
A Department of Health spokesman said: “We are confident that any concerns about underperforming hospitals will be thoroughly investigated by the regulator, the Care Quality Commission. We have armed them with powers to take tough enforcement action to make sure all hospitals give patients high quality care.”
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Readers' comments (5)
Anonymous | 27-Mar-2010 12:27 pm
CQC can't be trusted to regulate - the DOH regulating itself - it's yet another politicised quango.
Lady Young's comments on who is responsible for service failure after the Stafford Debacle draw a line under the CQC's independence from DOH interference.
The NHS continues to serve it's political masters and not the public interest.
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Anonymous | 27-Mar-2010 5:07 pm
If you have a life threatening condition that is complicated and difficult and having a potentially life saving proceedure may also kill you do you.
A) Want the medical staff to try to save your life even with the risk of you dying on the operating table or
B) Want the medical staff to worry about their statistics if they take the risk and fail
and not give you the option ?
Its your NHS - let the government decide !
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Anonymous | 27-Mar-2010 7:02 pm
humans are mortal creatures.
I am sure that where as years ago many people died at home, the increasing number of people admitted to hospital for a multitude of reasons may potentially relate to the increase of deaths in hospital.
1. people are living longer
2. there is an increase in the disease factor
3. lifestyle habits such as alcoholism, smoking, stress, drug addiction, violence in the community may cause life threatening conditions
4. increase in traffic leading to more fatal accidents where victims die when they reach hospital
5. vastly hugely increased workload, government benchmarks, 18 week waiting times, dangerous turnaround of elective patient numbers
6. people referred for non urgent treatment ahead of clinical urgency because of government benchmarks for waiting times?
7. shortage of quality staff wanting to work in the nhs because of huge pressures on the workforce.
while I have no idea on official statistics for any of these thoughts, and a valid study may shed a light on these matters, please remember we will all die one day, one way or another, in hospital or out of it.
the prevention of un-necessary death in hospital must never the less always be of paramount importance
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Anonymous | 28-Mar-2010 4:34 pm
The two comments above illustrate why teaching statistics to nurses has been a total failure.
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Anonymous | 13-Apr-2010 9:27 am
to the comment above have you thought that its probably the way it has been taught!!
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