The Whittington Hospital is the safest in the country

The Whittington is officially the safest hospital in the country. On Thursday 27 October, the NHS Information Centre published the new summary hospital-level mortality indicator (SHMI) for all non-specialist acute trusts and the Whittington scored 67, the lowest score. The indicator covers all deaths of patients admitted to hospital and those that occur up to 30 days after discharge from hospital, a new method employed by the Whittington in recent years.

 

The figures are compiled from data on the expected death rate based on the demographic of a certain area compared with the actual death rate at the hospital. Celia Ingham Clark, executive medical director at the Whittington, said that the hospital has been reducing the risk of death for years and that the new way of calculating the mortality rate in hospitals shows just how far the Whittington has come. “Cautious optimism is what we are feeling. The only way that you can increase patient’s safety is being absolutely systematic in the reduction of risk. It is probably not the most exciting part of medicine but attention to detail is crucial.” The Whittington has also increased the direct involvement consultants have on their wards and has introduced a colour coding chart system so that nurses are immediately warned if any patient measurement reaches a dangerous level.

 

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Note to editor:

The SHMI can be used locally by individual hospital trusts to assess and investigate their mortality related outcomes. Regulators and commissioning organisations can also use the SHMI to investigate outcomes for Trusts under their jurisdiction. In all of these cases the SHMI should not be used in isolation but in conjunction with other indicators and information from other sources (patient feedback, staff surveys and other such material) that together form a holistic view of Trust outcomes and a fuller overview of how Trust processes are impacting on outcomes. For further information on the SHMI and to view the data go to http://www.ic.nhs.uk/pubs/shmi1011