Death rates are a poor measure of hospital care and should not be used to trigger public inquiries, experts say.
The BMJ analysis argued the figures were a “poor test of quality” and urged inspectors to rely on other measures instead.
It contrasts with the pressure mounting on the Care Quality Commission to pay more attention to death rates produced by Dr Foster, a private research group.
The NHS regulator said death rates was just one part of the armoury.
The two experts in disease monitoring, Professor Richard Lilford, from Birmingham University, and Peter Pronovost, from Johns Hopkins University in the US, criticised the way death rates were used to castigate Stafford Hospital over the past year.
It was widely reported that an extra 400 people may have died as a result of poor standards at the hospital - a figure which was based on average death rates. But the experts said the claims were “precarious”.
They concluded death rates were too blunt and were only being “kept alive by well-meaning decision-makers”.
Read more at BBC Health.
Tags: CQC, Death rates, Mid Staffordshire
