Mid Yorkshire Hospitals Trust highly commended for improved death rates

A report by NHS analysts has highlighted improvements to death rates at the district’s hospitals.

The independent Dr Foster Hospital Guide found that Mid Yorkshire Hospitals Trust had improved its Hospital Standardised Mortality Ratio (HSMR), a measure of the deaths of patients while in hospital care.

The report said Mid Yorkshire, which runs Pinderfields, Pontefract and Dewsbury hospitals, had an overall HSMR of 97, below the national average of 100 and down from 108 a year ago.

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Mid Yorkshire was also named as one of 12 Highly Commended trusts after improving death rates among emergency patients at weekends, recording a HSMR score of 99.

Dr Richard Jenkins, Mid Yorkshire’s medical director, said: “We are delighted to he highly commended by Dr Foster. It shows how far we have come in one year and is a fantastic testament to the hard work of staff who have really made the difference here.”

Mid Yorkshire said it had improved the observation and management of patients who started to show signs of deterioration, and had introduced an early warning system to keep patients safe.

Improvements to the care of dying patients had already been made to ensure they passed away at a place of their choice instead of being stuck in hospital.

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Dr Jenkins said: “In April we became one of the first trusts in Yorkshire to introduce the new National Early Warning Score (NEWS) system to help keep our patients safe.

“We have also worked with Wakefield Clinical Commissioning Group to improve palliative care provision in the evenings and at weekends so that people are more likely to be cared for in the place of their choice rather automatically coming to hospital.”

Mid Yorkshire said it had also improved the way it collected mortality data.

Dr Jenkins added: “This is a technical aspect of the data we collect about our patients. By improving this we can show a true picture of the Trust’s mortality rates and accurately identify areas of concern.”

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