Hospital tables “should prompt authorities to investigate”

The publication last weekend of death rates in hospital trusts throughout Britain has been hailed as a “courageous attempt” to compare the performance of hospitals, but one that offers little help to patients.

The research shows that for every 10 people who die in the best hospitals, 17 die in the worst, even after adjusting the figures for patients' ages, sex, diagnoses, whether the admission was an emergency, and length of stay.

The biggest predictor of death rates was the number of doctors in the hospital and the area. The more doctors per bed and the more GPs per …