ONE of Worcestershire’s top health bosses has welcomed a report saying a high amount of patients dying in hospital or soon after being discharged should not necessarily be taken as a reflection of poor care.

A study by NHS England into the two mortality measures used by health trusts – the Hospital Standardised Mortality Rate (HSMR) and the Summary Hospital-level Mortality Indicator (SHMI) – found “no significant association” between death rates and the amount of these which were found to have been avoidable.

Interim chief medical officer at Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs Redditch's Alex Hospital, Dr Andy Phillips has welcomed the report, saying looking at death rates was useful but had to be taken in consideration with other elements.

“We recognise that, within a group of patients who die in hospital, some of them will die because it’s the end of their lives,” he said.

“For some there will be no area of care we are concerned about.”

Both metrics are based on whether the amount of patients who died was higher or lower than expected.

If the number of deaths within a trust meets that which was expected during a given period the organisation is given a score of 100, with lower scores for fewer death and higher for more.

The HSMR measures only those patients who died in hospital while the SHMI, which was introduced in 2010 as a result of the Mid Staffordshire scandal, also includes deaths up to 30 days after being discharged.

A criticism of this measure is it includes deaths which have no relation to a patient’s care, such as if they were killed in a car crash.

THE HSMR at Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust – which also runs the Worcestershire Royal Hospital and Kidderminster Hospital – stood at 101 in March, meaning the amount of deaths in hospital was very slightly above expected.

But this has fallen dramatically since December, when it stood at 120.

But the trust’s SHMI statistics are higher, with its score in February – the most recent available – standing at 121.

Although this shows death up to 30 days after leaving hospital were significantly above expected, this represented a drop from 130 in both January and December 2014.

Dr Phillips said these statistics can help identify areas which need closer examination, but were of little use if they were looked at in isolation from range of other measures reported on a monthly basis.

“With a group of 100 patients who die and 100 who leave hospital, one would expect more areas of concern around the ones who died,” he said.

”It is appropriate to look at that.

“There will be a very small percentage of patients where adverse care has been responsible for increasing their likelihood of death.

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“But while we are looking at these patients we are also looking at all the other metrics. We very much try to triangulate that information.”

The acute trust publishes its HSMR and SHMI data, along with a number of other statistics, on a monthly basis as part of its board reports.

All reports are available at worcsacute.nhs.uk.