AT Warrington & Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust members' annual meeting in August 2013, Mel Pickup – chief executive – stood up in front of members and praised the trust for having a positive year.
Two months later the Warrington Guardian reported Warrington & Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust as one of seven trusts with a higher-than-expected summary hospital level mortality indicator – covering the period from April 2012 to March 2013 – in the October 2013 publication of historic experimental statistics from the Health & Social Care Information Centre.
At the members' meeting presentation on September 7 this year, the hospital used mortality-rate information to drive improvements.
Progress, they tell us, has been due to increased clinical staffing levels, more doctors, nurses and therapists, improving clinical support out of hours and at weekends, consultant-led mortality reviews and learning from incidents and complaints.
Not once does it mention the work done behind the scenes to improve the way data is collected.
The trust has launched the crack-the-code campaign to ensure that we continually, accurately and comprehensively document all aspects of patients' health and the care they receive.
Data is provided to medics on their activity and how this benchmarks with local and national peers as part of their appraisal and validation process.
The trust provides information and awareness of the impact of documentation and coding on patient care and mortality ratios such as HSMR, as well as ensuring the trust receives the appropriate funding for the work we do.
A coder will be present on AMU and CMTC from late October 2013 to support this.
The chief executive recognises that the improved clinical processes that are required to facilitate better data collection will undoubtedly have a beneficial effect on the measure but fails to tell the members this, leading us to believe that the improvement is down to increased clinical staffing levels, more doctors, nurses and therapists.
Why can't Warrington Hospital have a more open culture, with better information for patients and the public?
That information must be credible and provided on a basis that is honest and consistent.
PETER WARD Runcorn
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