Forty hospitals performed as badly as or worse than Stafford Hospital, indicates an in-depth analysis of quality indicators for 2007-8, carried out by the international consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The figures emerged last week at an open panel discussion on hospital reconfiguration organised by the independent think tank 2020health (www.2020health.org).

They back up concerns raised earlier this year by Brian Jarman, head of the Dr Foster Intelligence Unit at Imperial College London, about excess deaths at 25 trusts in England (BMJ 2010;340:c1745, doi:10.1136/bmj.c1745).

In 2009 the former health services watchdog, the Healthcare Commission, found higher than expected death rates between 2005 and 2008 at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, and a full public inquiry into events there has now begun (BMJ 2010;341:c3952, 21 Jul, doi:10.1136/bmj.c3952).

Ian Wootton, who co-leads on healthcare …