Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has ordered for an annual review of “avoidance deaths” to be conducted in English hospitals.
An annual study of 2,000 patient notes of those who later passed away will allow for hospitals to be ranked in accordance with avoidable mortality rates, Mr Hunt said and will establish the national rate of avoidable deaths.
He added that there were approximately 1,000 patients dying needlessly in NHS hospitals each month.
Mr Hunt promised additional training for new clinical staff. He said: “I’m determined to go even further in rooting out poor care, and have ordered a national case-note review to work out the percentage of avoidable deaths by hospital.
“I want all hospital boards to have a laser-like focus on eradicating avoidable deaths in their organisation; even one life lost to poor care or safety error is too many.”
A spokeswoman for the Department of Health said: “The review will be used to establish a national rate of avoidable deaths every year, and on that basis place individual hospitals into bandings according to the number of deaths estimated locally.”