NHS Performance Data Tool and NHS Trust League Tables

I am updating the House about the publication of a data tool and league tables that make NHS performance under the NHS oversight framework open and accessible. This delivers a commitment in the “10 year health plan for England: fit for the future” to publish new league tables and as part of our plan for change, ensuring our investment in the NHS delivers meaningful outcomes, greater efficiency, and real value for patients.

At last year’s NHS providers conference, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care announced league tables as part of our plan to stop rewarding failure and to create a better and more transparent health service. We know that this is more important than ever, and the public expect better care and value following the record investment in the NHS made by this Government. This is why today NHS England has published these league tables, along with a data tool that gives a high-level view of the performance of NHS trusts. With this, the public will be able to see how their local NHS organisations are performing, including data on key areas such as urgent and emergency care, ambulances and electives—data that MPs and peers can also draw upon. Everyone can now see for themselves how their local services are doing and better hold their local NHS organisations to account.

The top trusts will be rewarded for their performance with greater autonomy, including the ability to reinvest surplus budgets into frontline improvements, such as diagnostic equipment and hospital repairs. We are also introducing a new wave of foundation trusts, which will give the best-performing trusts more freedom to shape services around local needs.

Meanwhile, trusts facing the greatest challenges will receive enhanced support to drive improvement, with senior leaders held accountable through performance-linked pay. The best NHS leaders will be offered high pay to take on the toughest jobs, sending them into challenged services and turning them around.

This is not a “name and shame” exercise; we know that there is amazing work carried out every day in every NHS organisation, and the information we are releasing will shine a light on the achievements of the frontline and back-office staff who push hard every day to improve the lives of everyone in this country. We are publishing these tables to drive high-level performance changes and, where needed, to inform difficult conversations about organisational performance, to inspire improvement and deliver a better NHS for all. We are also improving the fundamentals of oversight through the NHS oversight framework, which NHS England published on 26 June. It sets out a revised transparent approach to the oversight of integrated care boards and trusts following feedback from these organisations and wider system partners. The streamlined set of metrics within the new framework will enable systems and providers to focus on the recovery that we know the NHS needs, while maintaining quality, safety and patient experience. Trusts will be placed into one of four segments based on their performance against these metrics. The framework explains how NHS England will use the segmentation of providers to inform incentives and consequences for performance, and support improvement.

This is a transitional year for ICBs, as they transform in line with NHS England’s model ICB blueprint to focus on strategic commissioning and implement plans to meet the running cost reductions the Government require. We have decided, therefore, that they will not be scored, segmented or ranked this year. NHS England will still conduct annual assessments of ICBs to review how well each is performing its statutory duties, and will introduce ranking in the next performance year, 2026-27.

The league tables, data tool and underpinning framework are an important first step in both the recovery and the transformation of our health service in line with the 10-year plan. We will continue to refine our approach to both the league tables and the data tool in the light of feedback from the NHS, experts, and the public. They will make what the NHS is good at—and what it needs to improve—more visible to the public, so that they can hold us to account for its successes and failures.

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