The scope of the NHS medical director’s review of hospitals with high mortality rates has widened to include another nine trusts, it has been announced.

The prime minister announced last Wednesday that Sir Bruce Keogh would begin “immediate” inspections of five trusts, ahead of the start of a new inspection regime in the autumn.

The NHS Commissioning Board said today that Sir Bruce will look at another nine, all of which have been “outliers” for two years on the hospital standardised mortality ratio.

They are:

  • North Cumbria University Hospitals Trust
  • United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust
  • George Eliot Hospital Trust
  • Buckinghamshire Healthcare Trust
  • Northern Lincolnshire and Goole Hospitals Foundation Trust
  • The Dudley Group Foundation Trust
  • Sherwood Forest Hospitals Foundation Trust
  • Medway Foundation Trust
  • Burton Hospitals Foundation Trust

Sir Bruce said: “These hospitals are already working closely with a range of regulators. If there were concerns that services were unsafe the regulators should have intervened.

“The purpose of my investigation is to assure patients, public and Parliament that these hospitals understand why they have a high mortality and have all the support they need to improve. This will be a thorough and rigorous process, involving patients, clinicians, regulators and local organisations.”

The terms of reference for Sir Bruce’s work are expected to be released at the end of this week.

The five trusts named last Wednesday were: Colchester Hospital University Foundation Trust, Tameside Hospital Foundation Trust, Blackpool Teaching Hospitals Foundation Trust, Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals Foundation Trust and East Lancashire Hospitals Trust.

They were chosen because of their results under the summary hospital mortality indicator, and they were identified as outliers last month and a year before then. The SHMI compares expected and actual mortality figures for each trust, based on the number and complexity of its patients.

The original five were chosen because of their above-expected mortality in January 2012 and January 2013. Of the six releases of SHMI data over the past two years each of these trusts has had a higher than expected number of deaths in at least four datasets.

HSJ analysis shows there are another two trusts which had above-expected mortality in four of the six releases: East and North Hertfordshire Trust and Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals Trust.

One more trust recorded above-average mortality in three of the six datasets: Aintree University Hospital Foundation Trust.

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