Dr Foster health & medical guides
Take control of your health
Dr Foster is the UK's leading provider of comparative information on health and social care services.
Dr Foster's online tools and consumer guides enable both health and social care users and providers to make better informed decisions.
Dr Foster produces unique consumer guides to health services, the first of which was published in 2001 - the first time that comparative adjusted death rates for all NHS hospital trusts had ever been published.
The mortality data is produced by the Dr Foster Unit at Imperial College, Hospital Standardised Mortality Ratios (HSMRs) are now also published on Dr Foster's Hospital Guide.
Dr Foster publishes Hospital Guide 2009
Dr Foster is pleased to present the Hospital Guide 2009
The authoritative and independent guide to NHS hospital quality focuses this year on patient safety.
For the first time Dr Foster has given each NHS hospital a 'Patient Safety Score' that the public can use to identify the highest achieving hospitals. Also, find out more about hospital mortality rates, top tips for identifying what makes a safe hospital, how hospitals can save money by improving patient safety and the best hospital trusts of 2009.
Mid Staffordshire Report Welcomed By HSMR Pioneer
Dr Foster has welcomed the independent report, chaired by Robert Francis QC, into Mid Staffordshire Hospitals NHS Trust.
Dr Foster’s work on quality of care, including calculation of hospital standardised mortality rates (HSMRs), has played and will continue to play an important part in identifying and remedying failures in standards of care. We are pleased the report recognises the value of this work and endorse its recommendations.
The NHS leads the world in its commitment to the transparency of performance data. It was as a result of this commitment that Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust was highlighted as a failing hospital. There is still much work to do to improve patient safety and to understand why mortality rates vary so greatly between hospitals.
The Intelligent Board 2009: Commissioning to Reduce Inequalities
Our Health Inequalities tool allows you to see how well your local Primary Care Trust (PCT) meets the health needs of your local community compared with other regions.
PCTs are controlled by their regional Strategic Health Authority and the Department of Health. PCTs provide a range of community health services and commission hospital and mental health services from NHS trusts or from the private sector. Check across five indicators for your local PCT:
- Diabetes
- Heart Disease
- Avoidable Hospital Admissions
- Stroke
- Alcohol