One hundred NHS hospital patients may have died last year after their deteriorating health was not spotted by medics, it has emerged.

Health officials have been forced to intervene to prompt hospitals to do more to spot patients whose health is worsening.

It comes after the English hospital safety incident notification scheme received 100 reports last year where deterioration may not have been recognised or acted on and the patient died.

Officials said that although the patients may not have survived with prompt action, "the care provided did not give them the best possible chance of survival".

A new patient safety alert has been issued by NHS Improvement and NHS England to ensure that hospitals are using a system which helps spot acutely ill patients who need immediate assistance.

The National Early Warning Score (NEWS2), developed by the Royal College of Physicians, gives patients a score based on a series of checks including blood pressure, temperature and heart rate, among others.

If a patient's score changes it indicates either clinical deterioration or improvement.

The system was first produced in 2012 and updated in December 2017.

But two thirds of hospital trusts have not moved over to the updated system - which would help them identify more patients with life-threatening sepsis and puts more emphasis on new onset confusion and delirium.

"It is imperative that all trusts use this scoring system which will help reduce variation across the NHS in how fast deteriorating patients are spotted and treated," said Celia Ingham Clark, medical director for clinical effectiveness at NHS England and interim national director of patient safety at NHS Improvement.

"All trusts are being urged to adopt the same method to help avoid confusion and to ensure that all patients receive the same level of care."

Commenting on the alert, Care Minister Caroline Dinenage said: "Sepsis can be a killer and we know from some of the tragic cases of sepsis brought into the spotlight that the signs and symptoms can be easily mistaken for other conditions. This system will help staff better spot the crucial early warning signs and treat patients as soon as possible."

UK Sepsis Trust chief executive Dr Ron Daniels added: "Any system which identifies deterioration, including sepsis, early on, is an important step towards preventing unnecessary death."

Professor Bryan Williams, of the Royal College of Physicians, said: "This patient safety alert is a welcome development aimed at saving lives by focusing attention on the need to use NEWS2 to better identify patients at risk of sepsis and other life-threatening conditions."

The call comes after it emerged that senior doctors at one hospital removed one key indicator of serious illness from their warning score system because it "was identifying too many ill patients".

Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspectors found that the scoring system in the emergency department at Russells Hall Hospital, part of The Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust in the West Midlands, did not include oxygen saturation levels.

The CQC report, released last week, states: "Senior clinicians amended a national early warning score system to remove one key indicator of serious illness. This was undertaken with no consultation with the medical director or evidence base and the rationale provided was that it was identifying too many ill patients and generating too many emergency calls."