Analysis of NHS performance

Quality of healthcare can depend on your postcode

By BBC health correspondent Daniel Sandford

The NHS Performance Indicators published on Thursday show there are still huge variations in the levels of care the NHS provides in different parts of England.

They show, among other things, big differences in waiting times, cancer survival rates and deaths following surgery.

They were introduced last year to help hospitals and health authorities compare their performance with others. But the British Medical Association says they are crude and unreliable.

Selly Oak Hospital in Birmingham illustrates one of the problems with the indicators.

The local trust comes at the bottom of one of the league tables - the proportion of people dying within a month of surgery is higher there than anywhere else.

But the poor performance is explained away by John Charlton, the Chairman of University Hospital Birmingham NHS Trust.

"Unlike many of the other large teaching hospitals with who we are being compared we do not treat children and maternity cases who can expect very low mortality rates.

"100% of the Trust's activity is with patients who have a much higher risk of complication and death."

North-south divide

Today's indicators also seem to suggest a North-South divide in lung cancer survival.

For example your chance of surviving lung cancer in Hertfordshire is over eight percent - but in Rotherham it's only two percent - that's four times worse.

The number of emergency patients being admitted within two hours in Accident and Emergency Departments also varies.

In Sunderland almost every patient is admitted in two hours while in Barnet in North London only around a third of them are admitted in that time.

Looking at the whole of England, the indicators also suggest the proportion of people who die after surgery has gone up since last year.

The usefulness of the "league tables" is yet to be proved. But the government believes that by this time next year it should see the NHS performance improving because hospitals will be trying to improve their figures.