Mortality rates in all the district’s hospitals are lower than average, figures released by the Department of Health have revealed.

Bradford Teaching Hospitals, which operates Bradford Royal Infirmary and St Luke’s Hospital, had five per cent fewer deaths than expected with 1,843 people dying, compared to the expected number of 1,950.

The new figures on patient mortality also show that Airedale NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Airedale General Hospital, saw its expected mortality rate drop from a predicted 1,022 deaths to 950 actually recorded, a seven per cent drop.

The two trusts ranked 107 and 116 respectively out of 147 Trusts across the country for having low mortality rates between April last year and March 2011.

One of the highest ranked trusts was York, whose predicted deaths was 1,254, compared to the 1,443 actually recorded.

Bradford Teaching Hospital Trust’s chief executive Miles Scott welcomed the release of the new hospital-level indicator into mortality.

“It shows that we are one of the safest hospitals in the country,” he added.

“The safety of our patients is of the utmost importance and everyone has made enormous efforts to improve the mortality rates. The low rate shows that the wellbeing of patients is crucial to our care and success.”

Andrew Catto, medical director at Airedale Foundation Trust, said that he was pleased with the statistics.

“They highlight the quality of our staff and the strong leadership shown by our clinical teams,” he said.

“They should not be taken in isolation, but will be useful in the future to help us identify any trends that may need further investigation.”

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