Overview

• The tables, published by the Department of Health and Social Care, use around 30 measures including A&E and elective waits, patient experience and finances, and will be refreshed every three months.
• Trusts are grouped into four segments with lower composite scores indicating better performance, and specialist hospitals dominate the upper ranks.
• Moorfields Eye Hospital leads the acute list, Northumbria Healthcare is the highest-ranked general acute trust, and Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King’s Lynn sits at the bottom of the acute table.
• Top performers gain greater autonomy and reinvestment of surpluses, while persistently poor performance can trigger extra support, pay docking for senior managers and incentives for leaders to take on challenged services.
• Think tanks and sector bodies including the Nuffield Trust, the King’s Fund, NHS Providers and the NHS Confederation warn that a single composite ranking—especially one including finances—may mislead the public, harm staff morale and disadvantage smaller or remote trusts, as ministers plan to expand the regime to integrated care boards by summer 2026.