Hospital upgraded after error found

The Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases NHS Trust in Bath was given two stars during the annual ratings last July.

But on Thursday, the Department of Health admitted an error had occurred while information was being processed for the trust's staff opinion survey.

The trust has now been given the highest three- star rating, which means it is eligible for additional benefits.

These include a £250,000 one-off payment.

For its staff survey in July, the trust scored one - significantly below average - but now this has been changed to a mark of four, which is above average.

The department said the mistake resulted from a simple coding error when the data was collected by an external contractor.

Health Minister Lord Philip Hunt said: "I would like to congratulate staff at the trust for their hard work in achieving a performance rating of three stars."

Highlighted concerns

Chief executive Nicola Carmichael said: "Because we do our own internal staff survey, we felt morale was very good.

"We were quite concerned at the initial report based on the national staff survey.

"We were very pleased with an overall two-star rating but this was one area we were concerned about."

The trust highlighted its concerns and the error was found.