An analysis of deaths in English hospitals has found 19 NHS trusts have higher rates than would be expected.

But monitoring body Dr Foster’s report on 147 trusts shows an improvement on 2009, when the figure was 27. The survey also shows that four trusts had a higher than expected number of patients who died after surgery.

The NHS Confederation said the report showed where the NHS “could do better”. The government says unsafe care will not be tolerated.

Hospitals with higher-than-expected death rates were: Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust; Buckinghamshire Hospitals NHS Trust; City Hospitals Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust; Derby Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust; East Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust; George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust; Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust; Isle Of Wight NHS PCT; Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust; Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust; Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust; Royal Bolton Hospital NHS Foundation Trust; Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust; South London Healthcare NHS Trust; Southport and Ormskirk Hospital NHS Trust; The Dudley Group Of Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust; The Royal Wolverhampton Hospitals NHS Trust; University Hospital Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust; and, Western Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust.

Read more at BBC Health.

Doctors in the NHS do not know how well they are performing and whether they are more likely than their colleagues to kill or cure their patients, because of a widespread failure to collect the information, a Guardian investigation reveals.

The results of a major exercise looking at one particular procedure - vascular surgery - show a massive variation in death rates among patients admitted for planned operations and reveal that some hospitals have unacceptably high mortality.

It demonstrates the case for the closure of small hospital units, which the government has put on hold. Death rates vary from less than one in 50 in some hospitals to more than one in 10 in others.

Death rates in planned vascular surgery for abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA - to prevent a burst artery) vary from under 2% in some hospitals to at least 10% in 10 of them.

Read more at The Guardian.

NHS trusts with unusually high death rates that have sparked alerts have been revealed for the first time in a move aimed at promoting accountability and patient safety.

But few of the trusts were found to have problems with quality of care and there are concerns that publishing the information will unfairly label them as “bad apples”.

The alerts are triggered if numbers of deaths among hospital patients admitted for particular conditions or procedures are significantly higher than expected.

The list, produced by the Care Quality Commission, dates back to 2007 and only includes those where investigations have been closed. CQC director of intelligence Richard Hamblin said: “This gives further impetus to trusts to regularly monitor outcomes. It takes us in the same direction as quality accounts.”

Seven trusts required plans including Barking, Havering and Redbridge Hospitals trust; Mid Staffordshire foundation trust; Basingstoke and North Hampshire foundation trust; Pennine Acute Hospitals trust; Salisbury foundation trust; Sheffield Teaching Hospitals foundation trust; and University Hospitals of Leicester trust.

Read more at HSJ.