Hospital Ratings across Merseyside a 'Mixed Bag' Says Cllr Pugh

Merseyside hospital ratings are 'a mixed bag ‘ according to Lib Dem Sefton Leader, Cllr John Pugh who serves on Sefton’s Health Scrutiny Committee. 

The rankings and figures produced by the NHS, he says, need to be taken with a pinch of salt. Over 134 Hospitals Trusts- Specialist and General have been ranked on the basis of selective financial and clinical data.

Reassuringly at least half of the Merseyside Hospital Trusts are in the top half of the league table, but of those- only Mersey and West Lancs Trust is a general hospital trust; the others being specialist hospitals. Merseyide and West Lancs Trust includes Ormskirk , Southport , St Helens and Whiston Hospitals.

“It is a little unfair,” says Cllr.Pugh, “ because a crude score and rank tells you little about the specific challenges Trusts face and ignores the problems some hospital trusts have with recruitment, population profile and aging buildings. The ranking metric is drawn from a mish mash of clinical and financial data and turned into a single number which needs some interpretation and explanation.

However the NHS rankings do tell us something. My takeaway is that bigger is not necessarily better with some of the larger trusts in the bottom half of the NHS  league. 

“I am worried though on the government relying too much on greed as the incentive for improvement. The Department of Health Press release says that "Managers will be held to account and will have their pay docked if they don’t show improvement. The best NHS leaders will be offered higher pay to take on the toughest jobs.” . 

Apart from the fact that the NHS is based on an ethic of public service not financial gain, there is already a live debate about the salaries at the top of the NHS with 296 Senior Managers in 2024 earning over £200,000 p.a.. Those numbers are only going to go in one direction. 

No-one is against a fair reward for service delivery, but experience shows that once a big financial carrot is given to a transformative manager that higher level of salary gets baked in for their successors whether or not they produce the same results or whether or not they are directly responsible for those results. 

 Noticeably the government is not offering extra remuneration for ALL staff in high performing hospitals.