NHS figures show the crumbling Queen Elizabeth in King's Lynn recorded almost 30pc higher patient deaths than expected last year.

While 1,255 mortalities were predicted at the QEH, some 1,600 occurred either at the hospital or within 30 days of a patient being discharged.

But Rebecca Martin, the hospital's medical director, disputed the figures, telling Mailonline the hospital had been experiencing a "clinical coding backlog".

"This means the coding of many patient's episodes of care were not fully included in the results," she said.

"This has underestimated patient complexity and their diagnosis, which means this data cannot be confirmed as........

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