Study finds patients spot good hospitals

Patients are good judges of the standard of the hospitals they use, according to a study that compared comments on NHS Choices with other measures of quality.

Patients have been able to rate hospitals on the NHS’ flagship website since 2008, and it is often argued that this should help other patients to make more informed choices about where to go for treatment.

However, the Imperial researchers say no previous study has investigated whether the online ratings are related to more formal measures of healthcare quality, such as mortality rates and the incidence of hospital-acquired infections.

Their study, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine (sign in or payment required), says they are. The researchers found that hospitals with better ratings tend to have lower death rates and lower readmission rates, while hospitals rated by patients as being cleaner have lower rates of MRSA infections.

"The match between online ratings and other measures is far from perfect – it’s possible for an individual hospital to have good ratings on NHS Choices but a high mortality rate, or vice versa," said Dr Felix Greaves from the School of Public Health at Imperial College London, who led the study.

"However, the general trend is that where a hospital’s overall performance on clinical measures is good, patients seem to rate it highly – and vice versa.”

The researchers examined 10,274 ratings for acute hospitals in England that were submitted to NHS Choices in 2009 and 2010.

When the 25% of hospitals with the best ratings on the website were compared with the 25% with the worst, the researchers found that mortality rates were 5% lower and readmissions were 11% lower at the more highly-rated hospitals.

Meanwhile, the 25% of hospitals with the best cleanliness ratings had a 42% lower rate of MRSA infections than those with the worst cleanliness ratings.

GPs and dentists have complained about the introduction of ratings to NHS Choices, claiming many comments are vague, or even defamatory.

However, the Imperial study found the majority of comments about hospitals were positive, with 68% saying they would recommend a hospital to friends.