HOSPITAL patients will soon be able to refer to league tables to find

which hospital or individual doctor offers the best chance of a cure.

Greater Glasgow Health Board expects to have data available in two or

three years covering a range of conditions, a senior board planner said

yesterday.

Awarding of contracts for treatment will have to take into account

objective data comparing outcomes between different hospitals and

clinicians, said Dr Harry Burns, deputy director of planning and

contracts.

Preliminary work by Dr Burns, which will feature in a BBC Panorama

programme tonight, compares treatment for two relatively uncommon

cancers, melanoma and testicular teratoma, at six West of Scotland

hospitals.

He found that the Beatson Oncology Centre at the Western Infirmary

offered a 10% higher chance of being still alive five years after

treatment.

''If it were my brother suffering from teratoma, I know which hospital

I would want him to go to,'' said Dr Burns, a former surgeon at the

Royal Infirmary.

''With this kind of information I don't think I would be able to sleep

at night if I had not made some contractual effort to make the best

choice.''

Dr Burns admitted that getting accurate data which presented a fair

picture would be complicated.

One factor in particular is that the best surgeon may appear to lose

more patients because he is handling the most desperate cases.

Not all the evidence will be as clear cut as the specialist Beatson

centre's performance on two relatively rare diseases.

''When it comes to something like breast or colon cancer, if we tried

to direct them all to the best hospital it would be swamped,'' said Dr

Burns. ''It means we will have to find out why some hospitals are better

and apply that to the others.

''I imagine most hospitals will be similar on most things. About 90%

will rank on a par, with only a few outstandingly better or worse.

''But if the changes in the NHS are going to mean anything in terms of

patient accountability, we must make the information available.

''It is only a matter of time before league tables are published of

hospitals and doctors, just as they are for schools, but it will be

equally complicated.

''It is important to get across to the doctors that this is not a

blaming exercise, but a recognition that some people are better at some

things than others. There is a lot of specialisation taking place

informally, worked out by doctors among themselves, and this raises

standards.

''But it means an end to the attitude that Doctor Knows Best. Too many

services have grown up because this doctor or that was interested in it.

We have to determine what the patients need and want.''