The ratings will cover death rates of some heart patients

Patients will be able to compare the performance of individual heart surgeons within months.

The Society of Cardiothoracic Surgeons is to publish star ratings for around 200 of its members later this year.

It will be the first time patients will be able to compare the performance of individual heart surgeons.

Up until now, they could only compare the performance of heart units.

Under the scheme, surgeons will be given one, two or three stars depending on their death rates for patients who undergo coronary heart surgery for the first time.

This accounts for on average two-thirds of their work. Surgeons will be assessed on figures they have supplied to the society over the past three years.

Those with higher than average death rates will be awarded one star. Those with death rates in line with the national average of 2.1% will receive two stars, while those with lower than average death rates will receive three stars.

Bristol scandal

The scheme aims to identify those surgeons who are not maintaining acceptable standards.

Ministers have been pressing for the introduction of league tables since the Bristol hearts scandal.

It will cover everybody who does coronary heart surgery Mr Colin Hilton

Surgeons at the Bristol Royal Infirmary were found to have continued carrying out heart operations on children even though they had higher than average death rates.

Ministers were also keen that all surgical work would be audited as part of this scheme.

However, the society has said there is not enough data available at the moment to enable them to do this fairly.

There has been concern that the introduction of league tables would deter some surgeons from taking on risky patients because of the fear that poor outcomes could damage their rating.

The decision to concentrate on those patients in first-time coronary surgery, which is generally not high-risk, aims to get around this problem.

The society is planning to extend its ratings scheme to other surgical procedures when that data becomes available.

Mr Colin Hilton, president of the society, said the government's pledge to introduce ratings by 2004 had pushed it into deciding to publish performance ratings.

"One of the main reasons we are doing this is because the government had pledged to introduce ratings by 2004.

"We would prefer to be in control of that because we do not feel that the figures the government use are accurate enough," he told BBC News Online.

"The other reason we are introducing ratings is because they will provide a good framework for monitoring performance which we hope will prevent any other Bristols."

He added: "It will cover everybody who does coronary heart surgery."