Ministers revive league table rankings of English hospitals

Labour has published the first football-style league tables to rank hospitals in England from best to worst since the early 2000s, despite warnings they will not help patients choose where to seek their NHS care.

- Denis Campbell

Moorfields specialist eye hospital in London tops the table, with the Queen Elizabeth hospital in King's Lynn in Norfolk bottom.

The health secretary, Wes Streeting, said the move would help banish the "postcode lottery" in the speed and quality of treatment.

But health experts cautioned it was impossible to capture correctly whether any hospital was "good" or "bad", and that the results could prompt patients to avoid seeking help at lower-rated ones.

Streeting said: "We must be honest about the state of the NHS to fix it. Patients and taxpayers have to know how their local NHS services are doing compared to the rest of the country."

The league tables cover all 205 NHS trusts in England, which provide acute, mental health, community-based or ambulance care. They will be updated every three months and are based on 30 different metrics, including how long patients wait for A&E care and planned treatment, the trust's financial position, and patients' direct experience of being looked after there.