The government's Healthcare Commission has revealed that controversial star ratings for hospitals are to be scrapped.

Next year will be the last time the system will be used after which a new "health check" for the NHS will be brought into operation, it was announced on Monday.

The star ratings system, which also covers NHS primary care trusts and ambulance services, was a flagship Labour health reform designed to improve public knowledge of service quality.

But the policy has been criticised for using too broad a brush in awarding a simple one, two or three star score when standards within one hospital can differ wildly.

The Healthcare Commission, which carries out inspections for ministers, said it wanted to make the new strategy more sophisticated and to "cover standards that matter to patients such as safety and the care environment".

'Richer picture'

From April 2005 NHS trusts will be measured against "core standards" in seven areas set by the Department of Health.

"With our new annual health check we will build a richer picture of healthcare organisations," Commission chairman Professor Sir Ian Kennedy said.

"We want to hear from patients, the public and those working in healthcare about what information they would find most useful. 

"We will measure what matters to everyone - following the patients' journey from prevention to treatment.

"We want to promote improvement through our system of assessment while allowing professionals to get on with the job of looking after patients."

Health minister Lord Warner welcomed the move. "It will be important that, at the end of the consultation, the new system provides a clear overall rating for each trust which takes account of the issues that are important to patients and is easily understood by them and by the public as a whole," he said.

"We support the commission's approach of minimising the burden of inspection on the NHS frontline.

"We look forward to being able to approve a final version of the new rating system's criteria, as we are required by law to do."

Reversal

But shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley said it was major reversal for ministers.

"This U-turn demonstrates forcibly how right the Conservatives were to say star ratings were a misleading and unhelpful way of describing hospitals," he said.

"Star ratings do not reflect the quality of clinical care provided by hospitals, or treatments received in clinical departments within hospitals.

"If patients are to exercise choice they need information relevant to this, not misleading star ratings.

"An example is MRSA rates. Hospitals with highest MRSA rates receive 'good' cleanliness ratings but have high infection rates.

"Given 5,000 people die every year from the hospital superbug, patients need information on the prevalence of infection to help decide where to go."

And Liberal Democrat health spokesman Paul Burstow said the change was "a step in the right direction".

"The litmus test for the new health check must be that it cuts the red tape that ties the hands of hardworking doctors and nurses and ensures that they can always treat the sickest quickest," he said.

"Too many of the political targets set by health ministers miss the point and make things worse.

"Waiting time targets that interfere with the fight against hospital infections should be scrapped."