Professor Frank Keane:

One has to respect that, because patients are individuals. One of the difficulties of grouping everything is that one is assuming the case mix and complexity of each patient is precisely the same. There are some hospitals which attract patients with a particular type of case mix, in terms of what they are like themselves, their age, their level of infirmity and how complex a procedure is. Comparing hospitals and patients is a complex process. If there is a hospital dealing with very complex and very sick patients, clearly it is going to have a different performance picture from hospitals which are dealing with very healthy patients who have no and low complexities.