NHS :: Cash rewards for hospitals with low mortality rate

NHS Health authorities have announced a plan to reward hospitals for low death and infection rates and few readmissions.

NHS North West chief executive Mike Farrar said payments needed to have a link to quality of care. Initially, payments will be made for treatments for heart failure, pneumonia, heart bypass grafts, and hip and knee replacements.

NHS North West – covering Merseyside, Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Cumbria and Lancashire – is piloting the reward scheme with ?1.5m pot of money. Health trusts which rank in the top 10 or 20% will get a share of the cash.

A similar method has been tried out successfully in United States.

NHS North West chief executive Mike Farrar said payments needed to have a link to quality of care. “At the moment organisations receive cash for each procedure they perform irrespective of whether the operation failed. This is the next step in the jigsaw,” Mr Farrar said.


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