Summary
This publication of the SHMI relates to discharges in the reporting period January 2014 to December 2014.
The SHMI is the ratio between the actual number of patients who die following hospitalisation at the trust and the number that would be expected to die on the basis of average England figures, given the characteristics of the patients treated there.
It covers all deaths reported of patients who were admitted to non-specialist acute trusts in England and either die while in hospital or within 30 days of discharge.
To help users of the data understand the SHMI, trusts have been categorised into bandings indicating whether a trust's SHMI is 'higher than expected', 'as expected' or 'lower than expected'.
Further background information and supporting documents are available on the SHMI homepage (see Related Links).
The HSCIC continually strives to improve the quality and content of our products and services. As part of this work, we are piloting a one page summary to accompany this publication and would appreciate any user feedback on this. A link to the document and a short user feedback survey can be found in the 'Resources' section of this page.
Key Facts
For the 137 trusts included in the SHMI from 1 January 2014 to 31 December 2014:
• There were approximately 8.7 million discharges, which resulted in 275,000 deaths either while in hospital or within 30 days of discharge. This includes deaths from other causes as well as deaths related to the reason for the hospital admission.
• 11 trusts had a 'higher than expected' SHMI. Of these 11 trusts, 5 also had a 'higher than expected' SHMI for the same period in the previous year.
• 109 trusts had an 'as expected' SHMI.
• 17 trusts had a 'lower than expected' SHMI. Of these 17 trusts, 9 also had a 'lower than expected' SHMI for the same period in the previous year.
Notes:
1. There is a shortfall in the number of records in the Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) data for discharges in the period January 2014 - December 2014 for the following trusts: South Warwickshire NHS Foundation Trust (provider code RJC) and Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (provider code RK5). Further details are provided in the corresponding HES Admitted Patient Care data quality notes (see Related Links). This has a negligible impact on the SHMI at national level. However, the SHMI values for the affected trusts will be based on incomplete data and should therefore be interpreted with caution.
2. Medway NHS Foundation Trust (provider code RPA) has informed us that activity for Medway Community Healthcare has been included in error in the data submission for their trust. This affects approximately 400 records in the period January 2014 - December 2014 and means that the number of finished provider spells and observed deaths is overstated for SHMI diagnosis group 140 for this trust. This has an impact on the data for this diagnosis group and on the overall SHMI value for the trust, and so users are advised to interpret this data with caution. However, analysis suggests that the SHMI banding for the trust is unaffected. This submission error has now been corrected by the trust and the additional records will not be included in the next SHMI release, due to be published in October 2015. This has a negligible impact on the SHMI at national level.
3. Further information on data quality can be found in Appendix B: Background Quality Report of the SHMI quarterly report, which can be downloaded from the 'Resources' section of this page.
Last edited: 31 August 2021 3:40 pm
