Hospital guide

Find the right care with a hospital directory that lets you easily compare the health services available in your area.

NHS patients in England now have the right to choose where and when they receive hospital treatment. The Hospital Guide makes it simple for you and your GP to find the hospital best suited to your needs. With a comprehensive directory of NHS hospitals and private hospitals to compare in the UK, our guide gives you the health information every patient should know when deciding where to receive treatment.

By choosing from the search list of the 30 most common operations performed in the NHS in England, the Hospital Guide will answer some of your most important questions:

  • What's the waiting time for treatment?
  • How long can I expect to stay in hospital?
  • Will I need to stay overnight?
  • What's the risk of me having to return to hospital urgently?
  • Who are the consultants that may treat me?
  • Which hospitals have high rates of MRSA and C Difficile?

The Hospital Guide gives you an annual snapshot of trust performance. The most recent edition, published in November 2011, reported the performance of NHS hospital trusts in England for the time period April 2010 to March 2011. You can view more detail about the individual indicators we published in the guide in the methodology. Alternatively, you can access monthly updated performance indicators published by hospital site for common procedures from selecting an individual hospital below.

Dr Foster is an independent organisation dedicated to helping patients make informed decisions about their health. By comparing the performance of NHS trusts and evaluating the levels of NHS quality throughout the UK, our hospital directory gives you the knowledge you need to put yourself in good hands.

Find what's best for you with the option to either search for health services that match your medical needs, or search the suitable hospitals in your area:

Required fields

Please enter a valid postcode to search for a local hospital.

Please select a procedure from the dropdown list.

To search for a hospital or trust, either type part of the name of the hospital or trust into the first text box, select your NHS or private hospital from one of the dropdowns, or type in a valid postcode into the postcode search box. You may find it easier to search for a hospital using the full hospital list, which covers all the hospitals within this guide.