The latest tables measuring the performance of hospitals in England show an increase in the number of those earning a three star rating.

But opposition parties have dismissed the claim, saying that performance ratings are meaningless.

A total of 68 of England's 304 trusts received a full three stars in this year's ratings.

However, 10 trusts received no stars at all and standards were found to have fallen in 36 trusts.

Do you think NHS standards have improved? What are your experiences of hospital treatment? Are performance tables the best way to judge the NHS?

This debate is now closed. Read a selection of your comments below.

Your reaction

These performance tables of hospitals in England must take both man-hours and taxpayers' money, all of which could be better spent. Most people needing hospital treatment are limited to choice by the geographical position. The only performance table we really need is percentage of taxpayers money wasted on pointless "league tables".
Stephen G, UK Newcastle-upon-Tyne

The government's obsession with league tables serves only to demoralise staff and frighten patients

Paul, UK

I agree with Stephen. I can only assume the government and civil service have nothing better to do. Their obsession with league tables serves only to demoralise staff and frighten patients. Good leadership requires a generous spirit, not constant criticism.
Paul, UK

They're a great idea. It's painful for the hospitals that have been criticised by the tables, but it only highlights where improvements can be made and where the management and staff need to be replaced. Morale has little to do with it, when you work anywhere it's the service and quality of work you provide that is most important. Not if you are happy or not.
T Gill, UK.

Performance tables are one way of assessing how the NHS is doing, but other methods should be included such as patient satisfaction. It's one thing to treat people quickly and another to treat them badly.
Tez, England

I hear from a friend that the NHS has just taken delivery of a hugely expensive piece of computer software that handles waiting lists. Its job is to let a consultant manipulate lists in any way they wish, while keeping track of the actual people. I just can't imagine what they'll use it for.
Steve, UK

To Steve, UK: It is very naive and simplistic to use waiting times alone to 'judge'. The unaccountable NHS managers will just massage or even fake the figures to score points. They would have moved on before being found out! I know of patients who were victims of waiting list 'revisions'. They were simply removed off the list! I wonder what Steve would say were he one of those victims!
Pat, UK

I would only believe performance tables, if they were compiled on comments made by a) patients who have spent time in these hospitals and b) staff who have worked in them. The NHS will not improve until we get rid of all the managers that not only outnumber doctors, but create these tables that nobody believes anyway.
Baz, UK

No use having first rate food and decor if one is receiving second rate treatment

Pat Vincent, UK

No use having first rate food and decor if one is receiving second rate treatment Performance or league tables would be of value, if they also contained figures on clinical outcomes. No use having first rate food and decor if one is receiving second rate treatment.
Pat Vincent, UK

I think that league tables are a necessary evil. Any hospital with zero star ought to be closed down and staff made redundant. That will send a useful warning to lazy staff in other hospitals.
David, UK

Performance measures are an important part of evaluation of how well the money is spent, doctors and consultants treat their patients and how it is compared to other hospitals. It is unfair to expect to spend and spend with no improvements to show of in terms of waiting list and quality of service.
Vijay K Vijayaratnam, United Kingdom

What exactly is the point of giving the 3 star hospitals the extra money, surly it is the under performing hospitals that need the help
Alexander Avery, Britain

OK - statistics based performance tables are not a perfect way to judge hospitals. From personal experience, I know that 'waiting lists to be placed on waiting lists' do exist now. Perhaps random sampling of a proportion of patients, to ascertain their views on the service provided would cut the risk of managers massaging the true picture. (It could be easily done, for example via postal questionnaires after a visit.) I do think that the tests are necessary, though. It seems to make sense to reward those proving that they are working to the best of their ability, and to provide incentive for others to follow. With this in mind, I totally support the "spirit" of the performance ratings (and subsequent funding increases) - although the methods of judgement might need a bit of a tweak!
Caroline, Wiltshire, UK

Not everything that counts can be counted, not everything that can be counted counts.
Dr Stephen Hayes, Southampton

I work in a 3 star trust. Last weekend it was described as "the worst place I've ever worked" by a locum doctor on his first day. The junior doctors' hours target was probably met because they weren't monitored adequately at the end of last year, and the trust's own "predicted" hours were submitted instead. And I note that the "staff survey" was not available - probably because dissatisfaction is so high that the board won't have dared to publish the results. The hospital is grossly understaffed, but we've been told that any out of hours work we do to keep the place running is "goodwill" and shouldn't count as true work. The alternative is to work by the clock, and have a dangerous hospital. Representative and fair? What a joke.
Nick, England (S. Yorks)

There is only one way we will get a better NHS go back to the old way of running it get rid of the managers they know nothing about how to run a hospital. They were brought in by the Tories to give jobs to the old boys club. They take up most of the money in pay for themselves and their friends. Think of the money that could be used for the good of the service if they did get rid of them
A. Butler, England

Like democracy, performance tables are absolutely the worst possible solution, apart from all the others.
Guy Chapman, UK

As a qualified nurse I have worked in 3 of these trusts

Claire, England

The way the government is choosing to measure NHS trusts is absurd. Are they taking into account the different demographics that different trusts have to work with? These will have an enormous influence on the stats. Stats are important, but they need to be supported by more qualitative data, which they are not. As a qualified nurse I have worked in 3 of these trusts. From my quite recent experience, the best one only got 1 star, and by far the worst hospital that I have ever stepped foot in got an amazing 3 stars!!
Claire, England

If you've got an electorate that is best addressed and most easily satisfied through a medium that offers over-simplistic "solutions" to difficult problems, then yes, I suppose these 'performance' tables are the best way to go about it?!!
Robert Crosby, Nottingham, UK

You cannot measure how good a hospital is on stats alone

Cliff, England

What a load of rubbish. These tables are meaningless because you cannot measure how good a hospital is on stats alone. All the "best" ones do is play with the figures to make them look good. Also why give the "better" hospitals the money reward? Spend it where it is needed. Please don't inject the health service with the cancer of politics.
Cliff, England

There certainly does need to be some means of measuring the success or failure of our hospitals. They are publicly-funded and need to be accountable. I'm not sure the formula for generating these 'stars' is quite right yet, but it's a start in the right direction.
Debra, UK

Are performance tables the right way to measure any service? They make schools over assess young children, the railways lie about their punctuality, the police spend most of their time filling out forms, the NHS worries about meaningless minutiae and the armed forces do just about everything except learn how to fight. This is a nation, not a law firm, and only when we get a government that runs it like one - with a little imagination - will things improve.
Simon, London, UK

I work in a hospital that has just been awarded three stars. Aside from the general chaos and invisible management with which we suffer, I can certainly ascribe the good waiting times to copious massaging by the paper shufflers upstairs, who are in turn playing along with political propaganda. Basically, new patients are put onto an unofficial waiting list to get onto the official one, thus making our official waiting times really short. Neat, huh?
DM, UK

I am lucky enough to have two hospitals relatively close to home. One got 3 stars the other only 2 stars, yet everybody goes to the 2 star hospital by choice because they are known to be better. Once you tell someone how you are measuring them then they will work to that criteria.
Craig G, UK

No wonder morale is low.

Donald, Scotland

I cannot think of any better way of saying to staff in certain hospitals that they do not do as good a job as those in other hospitals. No wonder morale is low. This goes for schools and any other establishment that has performance league tables. No two get the same resources and support from local and central government.
Donald, Scotland, UK

Trying to assess the performance of such a variable activity on a "scorecard" basis is both simplistic and stupid. The biggest single problem is the insistence on centralised, directive-based management. It cannot possibly work with something so large and complex as the NHS. The performance tables serve merely as a tool for allowing Government Ministers to divert attention from their own dismal performances.
Paul B, Oxfordshire, UK

I have 3 problems with hospital league tables.
1. They almost certainly don't measure the right things.
2. By measuring the wrong things, they give perverse incentives to hospitals to improve their rating rather than look after their patients.
3. However you measure it, half of all hospitals will always be below average.
Adam, UK

Performance tables record only specific targets.

Andy, UK

Performance tables record only specific targets. They take no account of soft issues such as bedside manner, advice to parents and other kin, ambience. They focus carers' attention on countable issues only. They are statistics and all statistics can be interpreted to lie, promoting the desired positives while hiding facts.
Andy, England

I have no problems with the use of performance tables to judge the worthiness of public services, if, and only if we have Performance tables for Members of Parliament and their parties, so that we the taxpayers, can see if they are doing their jobs to the high standards they demand of everyone else.
Anonymous

I am not in favour of hospital ratings because no two hospitals have the same functions and also a lot of the ratings seem to be subjectively rather than objectively rated. Also, why are the hospitals that do well getting extra money? Surely that money should go to hospitals that did not do well.
V Gill, UK

The length of waiting lists should be the means of measuring performance.

Steve, UK

The length of waiting lists should be the means of measuring the performance of the NHS. Also, the NHS is never going to improve until the politicians on all sides of the house stop treating it as a means to score points.
Steve, UK

The opposition talk of nothing but spin. Yet when the first performance ratings were published they used them to attack the government and now that the performance ratings show things are improving they dismiss them as meaningless. Who is spinning now?
Gary Gatter, UK

Are Performance League Tables Fair? Whilst the main strength of such tables, is that they serve to encourage if not catalyse often intense debate, there are some problems that need to be addressed. Differences in the environment in which healthcare is provided impacts upon service delivery and service outcome. Volume-related waiting lists and activity levels, take little or no account of the resources that can be directed to improve both the quality and efficiency of health care. Local ownership of problems by all key stakeholders would appear to be an issue that has yet to be properly addressed and for which league tables are poorly suited.
John McCullough, England