Summary
This publication of the SHMI relates to discharges in the reporting period November 2018 - October 2019.
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 patients admitted to hospitals in England who died either while in hospital or within 30 days of being discharged.
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'. For any given number of expected deaths, a range of observed deaths is considered to be 'as expected'. If the observed number of deaths falls outside of this range, the trust in question is considered to have a higher or lower SHMI than expected.
The SHMI is not a measure of quality of care. A higher than expected number of deaths should not immediately be interpreted as indicating poor performance and instead should be viewed as a 'smoke alarm' which requires further investigation. Similarly, an 'as expected' or 'lower than expected' SHMI should not immediately be interpreted as indicating satisfactory or good performance.
Trusts may be located at multiple sites and may be responsible for one or more hospitals. A breakdown of the data by site of treatment is also provided, as well as a breakdown of the data by diagnosis group.
Further background information and supporting documents, including information on how to interpret the SHMI, are available on the SHMI homepage (see Related Links).
For the 129 trusts included in the SHMI from 1 November 2018 to 31 October 2019:
• There were approximately 9.4 million discharges, from which 288,000 deaths were recorded 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.
• 8 trusts had a higher than expected number of deaths.
• 107 trusts had a number of deaths within the expected range.
• 14 trusts had a lower than expected number of deaths.
Trusts in the same category in the same period in the previous year cannot be highlighted because SHMI values for the same period in the previous year are not available. This is due to the SHMI now being published monthly rather than quarterly.
Interactive data visualisation
Notes:
1. There is a shortfall in the number of records for Tameside and Glossop Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust (trust code RMP) meaning that values for this trust are based on incomplete data and should therefore be interpreted with caution.
2. Day cases are excluded from the SHMI. However, some day cases for University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (trust code RRV) have been incorrectly classified as ordinary admissions meaning that they have been included in the SHMI. There is also a shortfall in the the number of records for this trust for April 2019. Values for this trust should therefore be interpreted with caution.
3. From this publication onwards, the deprivation contextual indicators are calculated using the 2019 version of the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) meaning that the results are not comparable with previous releases of these indicators (which used the 2015 version). Further information is available in the statement of methodological changes (see Related links).
4. Further information on data quality can be found in the SHMI background quality report, which can be downloaded from the 'Resources' section of this page.
Last edited: 12 March 2020 9:55 am
