CUNNINGHAME North MSP Kenneth Gibson has welcomed recent figures which reveal that Crosshouse Hospital has the second lowest mortality ratio in Scotland.

The latest data published by the NHS Information Services Division shows that Crosshouse has recorded a Hospital Standardised Mortality Ration of 0.70 between the first quarter of 2014 and the third quarter of 2017.

At Crosshouse, only 70 per cent of predicted deaths occurred, representing a drop of 16.1 per cent over the last three and a half years compared to a Scottish decrease of 10.6 per cent.

Hospital Standard Mortality Ratios (HSMRs) assess hospital safety by dividing the number of recorded deaths occurring in hospital or within 30 days after a hospital stay, compared to the predicted number of deaths based on the risk of dying applied to different hospitals.

The fall was attributed to the Scottish Patient Safety Programme introduced by the Scottish Government in 2008 to reduce harm and improve the safety and reliability of healthcare.

This world leading patient safety programme has cut hospital mortality in Scotland by 10.6 per cent since the first quarter of 2014, preventing 7,800 deaths.

Kenneth Gibson said: “This is very encouraging news for people in Ayrshire and indeed across the rest of Scotland.

“With HSMRs of 0.70 at Crosshouse and 0.8 at University Hospital Ayr – both are well below the national average of 0.86 – I am delighted that NHS Ayrshire and Arran has been so successful in treating patients, mortality has plummeted to well below the Scottish average.

“I congratulate the dedicated and hard-working staff at these hospitals, along with all others at NHS Ayrshire and Arran, as well as Healthcare Improvement Scotland who manage the programme on behalf of the SNP Government, on this ongoing, positive trend.

“Successfully treating patients and saving lives is ultimately what the NHS is all about and it’s doing a great job here in Ayrshire.”

Health Secretary Shona Robison MSP added: “Thanks to a decade of work by the Scottish Patient Safety Programme, we’ve met our aim of reducing deaths by 10 per cent over a year earlier than planned. More importantly, it means more lives have been saved that may otherwise have been lost.

“This comes at a time when our NHS is treating more people, with more complex needs. While we want to go further, it shows that we continue to lead the way on patient safety, with other countries looking to learn from our approach.”