FEWER people have died at Whiston Hospital since 2016 due to the care they have received, the hospital’s medical director has said.

St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust uses the hospital standardised mortality ratio (HSMR) to monitor mortality rates.

The HSMR scoring system adjusts for a variety of factors that can influence expected mortality, such as population size, age profile, level of poverty, range of treatments and operations provided.

It only looks at in-hospital deaths and only looks at a number of different conditions.

The trust’s HSMR has dramatically improved (reduced) in recent months, which prompted a piece of work to try and work whether it was an actual fall.

As of June 2018, it has dropped 3.3 points.

The trust also saw similar drops in 2013-14 and to a lesser extent in 2015-16.

There were concerns the drop may have been a result of a coding change or something similar, possibly in relation to the recent implementation of the trust’s new IT system.

Kevin Hardy, the trust’s medical director, told the trust’s board this week that after investigating, all of the indications suggest mortality rates have actually fallen.

Dr Hardy said: “The conclusion is that the care we are delivering has resulted in fewer people dying in hospital.

“We wondered whether it was because a proportion of people of lower risk were being admitted.

“We have analysed it, and we’ve taken those people out and it’s still improved.”

Dr Hardy added that the trust “consistently” outperform the North West when it comes to mortality rates and consistently outperform England benchmarks for group mortality rates.

The trust’s medical director said he expects the rates to improve further.