Frequently asked questions

Who is CHKS?
CHKS is the leading independent provider of healthcare intelligence and quality improvement services to the NHS and independent healthcare sector.

What is the Top Hospitals Programme?
The CHKS Top Hospitals Programme celebrates the best in UK healthcare. There are a number of awards including those that are open to all UK hospital trusts and those that are made to hospitals and other organisations that are working with CHKS.

What are the categories for the open awards?
All UK NHS hospital trusts are entered automatically for the awards, which are judged using nationally-available datasets. There are three award categories:

• Quality of Care: recognising excellence in providing high quality care to patients which is appropriate to their diagnosis
• Patient Safety: recognising outstanding performance in providing a safe hospital environment for patients
• Data Quality: recognising excellence in clinical coding which plays an essential role in improving the quality of care provided to patients. 

How are the awards judged?
CHKS analyses nationally-available datasets to find the best performing hospitals trusts in each category according to a pre-determined indicator list.

What is the 40 Top Hospital Award?
The 40 Top Hospital Award is not open to all UK hospital trusts but is awarded to the 40 top performing CHKS client trusts. It is based on a number of indicators which can be found here.

What does this mean for the winning trusts?
The CHKS awards are the only purely data-driven, independently judged healthcare awards in the UK and as a result they have unrivalled credibility. The awards are considered a significant coup for winning hospitals which have benefited from wide-ranging positive coverage in local, regional and trade media.

When are the winners announced?
The awards ceremony will be held on 12th May at RIBA, London when the winning trusts will be announced.

Will photos be available?
Pictures from the awards ceremony and final press releases will be available for download from the CHKS Top Hospitals website on Thursday 13th May.