Lincolnshire hospital trust defends being among the bottom quarter of league table in new NHS rankings

The new league tables rating the performance of NHS trusts in England have been published for the first time, with United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust coming 122 out of 134 acute hospital trusts in the country.

Non-acute trusts were ranked separately with Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, which caters for mental health and learning disability being ranked 31 out of 61 trusts and Lincolnshire Community Health Services NHS Trust, which handles community hospitals and nursing care ranked 41.

According to the BBC, Health Secretary Wes Streeting has said the tables are a tool for helping to inform the public and let them exercise choice, but some trusts questioned their usability and the metrics employed.

Trusts in England will be ranked every three months. Top performers will get more power to spend their money, while those lower down will be urged to learn from the best while getting support from national officials.

The NHS trusts are scored on seven different areas including waiting times for operations, cancer treatment, time spent in A&E and ambulance response times. Performance levels are calculated based on data submitted by the trusts.

Finances are assessed, so a hospital rated highly for clinical care could be marked down for a large, unexpected deficit.

Trusts are sorted into four categories called segments, with the best overall performers in segment one and the worst in segment four.

Trusts experiencing financial difficulties cannot be ranked higher than segment three.

Within each segment, trusts are ranked by average scores, the lower each score, the better the ranking.

The public will be able to use the tables to check performance of their local hospital, ambulance service or mental health trust.

Reacting to the ratings, Lincolnshire Community and Hospitals NHS Group Chief Executive Professor Karen Dunderdale welcomed the introduction of the new NHS Oversight Framework, to monitor the performance of organisations against a range of metrics and against peers, meaning that they can continue to take action to bring about improvements for the benefits of patients and staff.

She said: “We have made significant improvements across both organisations of the Group (LCHS and ULTH) in recent years, particularly in terms of quality of care, bringing down our waiting lists and improving access to services along with improvements in our financial performance.

“We do also acknowledge that we still have more to do, and have a focus on improving the working lives of our staff, the performance of our urgent and emergency care pathways and shifting care out of our acute hospitals and into the community, which we believe will have a positive impact in the future and help us deliver the 10 Year Health Plan for England, which was published in July 2025.”

NHS Providers, which represents trusts, have said the league tables must be accurate or they could affect patients' confidence.

The Department of Health says that from next year best performing trusts could develop services around local needs while underperforming ones would receive "enhanced support" but bosses could have pay reduced.

Highest rated bosses would be offered bigger pay packets to help struggling trusts.

From next summer, the tables will cover integrated care boards too.