20 August 2009
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) today (Thursday) published on its website details of all mortality alerts it has reviewed and closed since its mortality outlier programme began in 2007.
CQC's programme uses statistical analysis to generate an alert where the numbers of patients who have died after being admitted to hospital for a particular condition or procedure is significantly higher than expected.
A case is closed when, after rigorous analysis, CQC judges that the reasons behind the alert were clear and could be verified without requiring further work with the trust, or because it is satisfied with the trust's response to its enquiries.
The regulator has published cases analysed and closed in the two years to June 2009. It includes details of each alert, outlining: at which trust it was generated; when it was raised; the medical condition or procedure to which it relates; what action was taken; and the reasons why the alert was closed.
The CQC says an alert can be raised for many different reasons and does not always indicate a problem with the quality of care. For example, an alert could be produced if a trust records data differently, or if a specific group of patients was at higher risk than normal. The regulator says this is why it is only publishing details of closed alerts, to allow the reasons to be fully understood first.
The regulator has received more than one alert for some trusts. However, this does not always indicate that a trust is performing poorly, and can in fact show that a trust is being more transparent in its reporting.
Richard Hamblin, director of intelligence at CQC, said: "Modern NHS trusts should make monitoring outcomes for patients a top priority. Our mortality outlier programme pushes trusts to keep a close eye on outcomes, enabling them to drive improvement where necessary.
"An alert can be generated for a number of reasons, and it is important to emphasise that it's not necessarily because of a problem with the quality of care. This is why we are only publishing details of the cases we have closed. The public and the NHS can be assured that before publishing, we scrutinise each alert thoroughly and understand why it was generated. We will not publish information that we aren't sure about.
"We are committed to making details of the alerts generated by our mortality outlier programme available to the public and will publish information about closed alerts on a quarterly basis."
Ends
For further information please contact the press office on 0207 448 9401 or out of hours on 07917 232143
Notes to editors
CQC uses data generated by the Dr Foster Unit at Imperial College, as well as information from its own Intelligence directorate, to identify alerts.
The alerts up to 1 April 2009 were analysed and closed by the CQC's predecessor, the Healthcare Commission.
About the CQC: Snippet for press releases
About the Care Quality Commission
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator of health and social care in England.
We make sure health and social care services provide people with safe, effective, compassionate, high-quality care and we encourage care services to improve.
We monitor, inspect and regulate services to make sure they meet fundamental standards of quality and safety and we publish what we find to help people choose care.