SPAIN'S top 20 hospitals have been named by the ministry of health.

Most are in Catalunya, but the list includes three in the Comunidad Valenciana.

The latter are Torrevieja general hospital (Alicante), La Ribera hospital in Alzira (Valencia), and Valencia's private hospital, Clínica Quirón.

They were judged on the average time a patient spends on a ward; mortality rates; number of operations involving outpatients as opposed to those who had to stay for a night or more, and operating costs.

Different categories, including general, national, regional, private and specialist were included.

Hospitals in Barcelona that were mentioned in the top 20 for each category were the Agrupació Sanitària Sant Joan de Déu-Hospital Clínic; Hospital Universitari de Bellvitge; Hospital Universitari Vall d'Hebrón; Hospital Sabadell; Corporació Sanitària Parc Taulí; Hospital Mútua de Terrassa; Sant Joan de Déu de Martorell;  Fundació Hospital Asil de Granollers; Consorci Sanitari del Maresme-Hospital de Mataró; Sant Celoni, and the private centres Clínica Corachán and Clínica Fundació FIATC.

One in Figueres, one in Tarragona, the University Hospital Arnau de Vilanova in Lleida, the district hospital of Ripollès and the Sant Jaume d'Olot in the province of Girona complete the list for Catalunya.

Móstoles hospital in Madrid, the centre in Molina del Segura (Murcia), and one each in Ciudad Real and Salamanca and Sevilla were also mentioned.