Epsom and St Helier hospitals are providing the best care in south west London and north Surrey according to a new report - ahead of all the other hospitals in the Better Services Better Value (BSBV) review.

The Quality at a Glance: Using Aggregate Measures to Assess the Quality of NHS Hospitals report, published on Tuesday, allows patients to see how hospitals in England measure up against one another.

The hospitals were judged on 10 standards including the length of time patients waited for an operation, whether they were involved in decision making about their care, had a good experience and got better after treatment.

Epsom and St Helier hospitals finished 91st out of 146 hospitals in the country - ahead of Kingston which was rated at 97, Croydon at 140, and St George’s at 141.

They also beat other Surrey hospitals including  Epsom’s former potential merger partner, Ashford and St Peter’s which was ranked at 115.

The findings strengthen Epsom and St Helier NHS Trust's argument that it should not be the one to lose accident and emergency and maternity services under the BSBV review.

Trust chief executive, Matthew Hopkins, said: "These findings contain some fantastic results for our hospitals, but we recognise that at 91st in the country, there are many aspects of our service we need to improve.

"But what the report does do is highlight our performance in both national and local terms.

"We are very pleased that we are recognised as providing the best patient care of any trust in south west London and north Surrey." 

The report was compiled by health communications company MHP Health Mandate which drew on the latest available data from the Care Quality Commission and information from the Office for National Statistics and Department of Health records.

A MHP spokeswoman said that although "no specific weight" was given to take into account the different sizes of the hospitals, the majority of the standards assessed were calculated as percentages.

The 10 standards hospitals were measured against were:

  • the risk of getting an infection from the hospital such as MRSA;
  • the rate of recent written patient complaints about the hospital;
  • the chance of an operation being cancelled at short notice;
  • the number of patients who said they had a good experience of care;
  • the number of patients who said they got better after being treated at the hospital;
  • whether a patient had to share a sleeping area of bathroom with someone of the opposite sex;
  • how long to wait for an operation;
  • the risk of being harmed during treatment;
  • if patients were involved in decisions about their care; and
  • the number of staff at the hospital who would recommend it to their friends and family.