Death rates: Best

Royal London & St Bart's Middlesex & UCH Chelsea & Westminster Royal Free Royal Hallamshire

It suggested that while overall the NHS is slowly improving, the quality of care varies widely according to where the patient is treated.

Death rates vary radically between hospitals even when the nature of the hospital, the type of patient and other local factors are taken into account, said the guide.

The mortality rate at Manor Hospital in Walsall, for example, was found to be double that of St Bartholomew's in London.

Death rates: Worst

Manor, Walsall Sandwell Broomfield Wexham Park George Eliot

Walsall NHS Trust was found to have the highest death rate in England in a similar survey early last year.

But John Rostill, chief executive of the trust, insisted staff shortages and high rates of heart disease and ill health in his area were responsible.

The survey also found some patients wait up to nine times longer than others for hip replacements.

Hip replacement times in days: Best

James Cook: 53 Homerton: 60 Ealing: 69 Luton and Dunstable: 86 Dorset County: 98

It found that some patients waited only 55 days for a life-saving heart bypass operation, while others had to wait for more than a year.

Other "postcode lottery" findings were that some hospitals were nine times more likely than others to cancel an operation at short notice.

Some 50 out of 230 hospitals did not meet the Royal College of Surgeons standard of having a trained paediatrician on-site 24 hours a day.

Almost a quarter of patients attending accident and emergency wards in England had to wait more than four hours, the report said.

Hip replacement times in days: Worst

Fairfield: 417 Royal Hampshire: 427 Hope, Salford: 452 Southampton General: 472 Whipps Cross: 483

And more than half of A&E units did not meet the Royal College of Physicians' standard of offering anti-clotting drugs to heart-attack patients within 30 minutes of arrival.

Mike Stone, chief executive of the Patients' Association, told the newspaper: "This guide shows we really haven't got a national health service, but that treatment depends on where you live."

Doctors' union The British Medical Association said the findings were a "dramatic demonstration" of the need for more doctors.

Heart bypass times in days: Best

King's College: 55 Cardiothoracic Centre Liverpool: 84 St Mary's London: 89 Royal Sussex: 93 Middlesex and UCH: 93

Health Secretary Alan Milburn applauded the research, telling the newspaper the analysis "quite rightly highlights" huge problems in the NHS.

He said the best way of improving healthcare would be with more investment funded by higher taxes.

The guide used a "star rating" to assess the quality of care patients received.

Heart bypass times in days: Worst

Queen Elizabeth Birmingham: 426 Derriford: 368 Guy's and Thomas': 309 St Bart's: 301 Wythenshawe: 288

Only two hospitals - St Bart's and the Royal London - received a maximum 10 stars, while 17 qualified for just one star.

The guide was compiled from questionnaires sent to the 271 NHS hospitals and 202 private hospitals in Britain, and then analysed by a team from the Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine in London.