The NHS commissioning board has been warned that its plan to introduce league tables for surgeons could lead to a breakdown of trust in the profession.
League tables ranking surgeons by how many people die in their operating theatres will be published next year, the NHS commissioning board has announced.
By next summer it plans to publish data "covering survival rates and quality of care for 10 specialties including cardiac, vascular and orthopaedic surgery".
Dr Pietro Micheli, who has worked as an advisor for the UK Department of Health and several NHS Trusts, said publishing league tables couldpush surgeons to work less as a team and provide a false sense of accountability to the public.
Micheli, associate professor of organisational performance at Warwick Business School, said: "The use of league tables is a controversial subject, especially in healthcare. Most problems with league tables are related to the behavioural consequences they lead to.
"If the main aim is to generate competition and select out low performers - in this case 'bad' surgeons - then league tables will inevitably disincentivise collaboration."
He said instead the tables could drive surgeons to start working against each other and trust between them could be harmed, adding: "Also from a surgeon's point of view, the easiest way to go up the rankings will be to deal with the least risky cases."
Micheli said all the concerns must be considered up front and if the decision went ahead a plan to mitigate risks should be drawn.
He stressed that transparency did not correspond to accountability and the risk of misinterpretation was "very high".
