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Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Volume 503: debated on Wednesday 6 January 2010

To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) when he was first informed of the high standardised mortality rates at Basildon and Thurrock NHS Foundation Trust; and if he will make a statement; (303856)

(2) how many reports he has received of high standardised mortality rates in the last 12 months; and to which hospitals such reports related.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health on what date his Department was first informed of the high standardised mortality rates at Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. (304701)

Hospital Standardised Mortality Rates have been published on the NHS Choices website since April 2009 and are normally updated monthly. However, it can take several months to verify and check the raw data before they can be used reliably and placed on the website.

In addition, the Care Quality Commission alerts individual national health statistics organisations to high specialty mortality ratios and they can then pursue any issue arising with the NHS organisation concerned until it is satisfactorily resolved. The Department does not routinely receive reports of high specialty mortality ratios on open cases at individual trusts.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made an oral statement about Basildon and Thurrock NHS Foundation Trust in the House on 30 November 2009, Official Report, column 855.