All kinds of NHS care has been assessed

But what do they say - and what do they mean for patients?

What has been published?

The commission has rated each of the 570 NHS bodies as excellent, good, fair or weak for their quality of services and financial management.

Factors assessed for the quality of service ranking included clinical care, meeting government targets and areas such as children's health, hospital acquired infection rates and community mental health care.

The financial management rating took into account both whether or not the NHS body had a deficit, and also how it ran its finances more generally.

All local hospitals, primary care trusts (which commission local care), mental health trusts and ambulance services were assessed.

Factors including patient reports, self-assessments by the bodies themselves and 650 indicators of financial and clinical performance were used to compile the findings.

What do they show?

Only two of the 570 bodies assessed, both hospitals, were ranked as excellent in both categories.

Twenty-four were ranked as weak in both categories, including eight hospitals.

Weak trusts will now have 30 days to draw up an action plan to tackle their particular problems.

More than half of all trusts were shown to need to make improvements in one or both categories.

Were problems concentrated in one area?

No. The Healthcare Commission concluded their ratings showed a "mixed picture".

Of the trusts running local hospitals and specialist units concentrating on one area, such as cancer, 79 out of 173 were fair or weak on quality of services and 120 were fair or weak on finances.

None of the 30 ambulance trusts in England, which have undergone reorganisation of services, scored excellent for services of finance.

A third of primary care trusts - 99 out of 300 - did score good or excellent for their quality of services.

But none were ranked excellent for their financial management, while only 24 were rated good.

Why was their performance so poor?

Primary care trusts hold 80% of NHS budgets, so are a key part of the service.

The way the trusts are organised was changed during 2005 to 2006, when the data was collected for the ratings.

And there are increasing demands for NHS care to be provided out of hospital and in the community, which PCTs are therefore responsible for.

Haven't there been NHS ratings before?

Yes. From 2001 to 2005, hotel-style star ratings were published for NHS organisations.

But they were criticised for trying to summarise performance in one rating, and not taking into account patients views.

So will the new ratings be useful for patients?

The Healthcare Commission says yes, and says the whole point is to try to set out for patients, in an accessible way, how their hospital is faring.

But critics, such as public health expert Professor Allyson Pollock, disagree.

She told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: "This system is based on a US model. There is no evidence at all that patients use it."

Professor John Appleby, a health economist for the independent think-tank the King's Fund, agreed.

He said: "How useful these ratings will be for patients in terms of choosing hospitals, I doubt.