Death risk: Why you should avoid hospitals on weekends

By Charlotte Beugge

Patients are more likely to die if they are admitted to hospital during the weekend than during the week, according to an in-depth analysis of NHS data.

The research, detailed in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, looked at 14.2 million NHS hospital admissions and 187,300 deaths which occurred within 30 days of being in hospital.

Patients were 16% more likely to die if they were admitted to hospital on a Sunday than a Wednesday and 11% more on a Saturday. The researchers found a slightly lower death rate if people were already in hospital on a weekend.

The conditions resulting in hospital deaths included pneumonia, congestive heart failure, heart attack, septicaemia, acute renal failure, urinary tract infections and neck or hip fracture.

According to the report, being admitted to hospital on Tuesday through to Friday was the lowest risk, whereas going into hospital on a Monday wasn't quite as bad as during the weekend, but there was still a "statistically significant" risk.

Chief researcher Professor Domenico Pagano from the University Hospital Birmingham Foundation Trust said that one explanation is that patients who are seriously ill can find themselves admitted on weekends while those less ill would have had their admissions postponed until a weekday.

Another reason why weekend admissions can have worse outcomes than those during the week is that at weekends, junior doctors are often left in charge as consultants tend to work office hours.

The health secretary Andrew Lansley said that it was "unacceptable" that patients admitted at the weekend have higher mortality rates.