Patients twice as likely to die after surgery at some trusts

Patients at some London NHS hospitals are more than twice as likely to die after a major operation than official forecasts predict.

Government figures today reveal significant variations across the capital in survival rates for heart, hip and knee surgery.

Death rates are worked out by comparing the number of patients who would have been expected to survive with the actual number who did. All London health trusts came within the "expected range" for the total number of patients dying up to 30 days after surgery.

But for elective hip replacements, death rates at Barts and the London were more than twice those predicted, putting them bottom of the league for London trusts.

The capital's highest death rate after knee replacements was at Ealing Hospital where it was also twice that predicted.

The Department of Health said the figures are not statistically significant and all were within acceptable guidelines.

Nearly 6,000 patients had operations cancelled at the last minute by hospitals across London last year, figures released in Parliament have shown. That is an average of 15 cancelled procedures a day.