I was delighted to see the Healthcare Commission's latest national survey of adult inpatients. This highlights the proportion of patients who rate their care as 'excellent' rather than aggregating together the proportion that rate it 'good, very good or excellent'.

I was delighted to see the Healthcare Commission's latest national survey of adult inpatients. This highlights the proportion of patients who rate their care as "excellent" rather than aggregating together the proportion that rate it "good, very good or excellent".

If we aspire to be good, very good or excellent - and don't mind which - then the latter method is clearly a good measure. However if we wish to move towards excellence, we need to focus on the proportion rating us excellent and therefore the commission should be commended for its reporting of these statistics.

Max Moullin, Sheffield Hallam University