These mortality indicators provide information to help the National Health Service (NHS) monitor success in preventing potentially avoidable deaths following hospital treatment.
The National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death (NCEPOD) have, over many years, consistently shown that some deaths are associated with shortcomings in health care. The NHS may be helped to prevent such potentially avoidable deaths by seeing comparative figures and learning lessons from the confidential enquiries, and from the experience of hospitals with low death rates.
The indicators presented measure mortality rates for patients, admitted for certain conditions or procedures, where death occurred either in hospital or within 30 days post discharge.
Data are presented for the 10-year period 2003/04 to 2012/13, and in separate breakdowns for females, males and persons.
For information on the definitions of what these indicators include, please see the relevant specification.
Key Facts
Of the five indicators in the 2012/13 financial year, 30-day mortality rates per 100,000 persons in England were highest amongst patients admitted for stroke (16,841), followed by those admitted with fractured proximal femur (7,180), patients admitted for myocardial infarction (4,631), patients undergoing surgery following a non-elective admission (3,830), and patients receiving a coronary artery bypass graft (1,578).
For persons in England in the 2012/13 financial year there were 3,020 fewer than expected deaths within 30 days for admissions for stroke, compared to 1,706 fewer deaths for surgeries following non-elective admissions, 776 fewer deaths for admissions with fractured proximal femur, 301 fewer deaths for admissions for myocardial infarction and 32 fewer deaths for coronary artery bypass graft procedures.
Over the 10-year period 2003/04 to 2012/13 the 30-day mortality rates per 100,000 persons in England show there has been:
a decrease of 38.6 per cent (7,536 to 4,631) in deaths following admission for myocardial infarction,
a decrease of 31.4 per cent (24,551 to 16,841) in deaths following admission for stroke,
a decrease of 29.1 per cent (10,134 to 7,180) in deaths following admission for fractured proximal femur,
a decrease of 26.6 per cent (2,150 to 1,578) in deaths following coronary artery bypass graft procedures,
a decrease of 21.5 per cent (4,879 to 3,830) in deaths following surgery following non-elective admission.
When compared to 2011/12, the 2012/13 30-day mortality rates per 100,000 persons in England show there has been:
a decrease of 3.0 per cent (1,626 to 1,578) in deaths following coronary artery bypass graft procedures,
a decrease of 1.6 per cent (4,708 to 4,631) in deaths following admission for myocardial infarction,
a decrease of 1.0 per cent (17,010 to 16,841) in deaths following admission for stroke,
an increase of 2.2 per cent (3,748 to 3,830) in deaths following surgery following non-elective admissions,
an increase of 2.4 per cent (7,015 to 7,180) in deaths following admission for fractured proximal femur.
A comparison between the 30-day mortality rates per 100,000 for males and females shows:
females experienced a 30.4 per cent higher 30-day mortality rate for admissions for myocardial infarction than males in 2003/04 (8,998 compared to 6,900), dropping to a 9.6 per cent higher mortality rate in 2012/13 (4,943 compared to 4,510); a narrowing of the gender gap of 20.8 percentage points,
females experienced a 2.7 per cent higher 30-day mortality rate for admissions for stroke in 2003/04 (24,864 compared to 24,198), increasing to a 14.2 per cent higher mortality rate in 2012/13 (17,780 compared to 15,565); increasing the difference between genders by 11.5 percentage points,
in 2012/13 females had a 44.7 per cent lower 30-day mortality rate for admissions for fractured proximal femur than males (6,079 compared to 10,992), despite the average female being 6 years older on admission (82 to 76), and females having over 2.5 times as many more emergency admissions in total (39,596 compared to 15,482).