The Healthcare Commission is the independent regulator of NHS performance and as such is responsible for the production of the Star Ratings data on NHS trusts performance annually. The Government is responsible for setting priorities, which in turn determine the indicators relating to key targets.
Performance indicators are information collected to show how health trusts are doing in relation to some of the main targets set by the Government for the NHS, as well as other broader measures of performance. They include information from surveys of staff and patients, and other measures useful to patients and carers.
Ratings do not provide a comprehensive picture of every aspect of a NHS organisation's performance. In particular, in their current form they do not include many measures of the outcomes of healthcare treatment (for example, whether there are variations between trusts in the quality of treatment or care for specific conditions). They are unlikely, on their own, to provide the information a patient would need to make choices about his or her treatment.
This website holds all Healthcare Commission performance ratings related information for 2003 / 2004. Information is divided into sectors and listed on the left side menue on all pages.
You can search by using trust name, advanced search or geographic search above, or you can click on a ratings link in the left side of the page if you know your trust type (acute, ambulance, mental health or primary care).
We have introduced graphs into this year's trust reports which compare trusts to other trusts in their cluster against different indicators that will help you benchmark performance.
The NHS performance ratings system places NHS trusts in England into one of four categories, three stars, two stars, one star and zero stars.
A clinical governance review assesses trusts across seven components of performance.
A quick way to find out how to use the site and understand the information.