NHS hospitals ranked in league tables for the first time
Wes Streeting squirms when asked if scrapping NHS England means job losses
The government has published the first-ever "league tables" for NHS hospitals in England, designed to identify areas needing urgent support and end the "postcode lottery" of care.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting stated the quarterly rankings will help improve services by highlighting performance differences and encouraging best practices across the NHS.
Hospitals are scored based on various factors, including finances, patient access to care, waiting times for operations and A&E, and ambulance response times, with lower scores indicating better performance.
Top-performing trusts will be granted greater freedoms and investment, while senior managers at persistently low-ranked trusts could face pay reductions.
However, health experts from organisations such as the King's Fund and Nuffield Trust have questioned the usefulness of the tables, warning that hospital performance is complex and not easily summarised by a single ranking.