Gordon Brown slams 'unacceptable' failures at Stafford Hospital
Failings at a scandal-hit Staffordshire hospital trust were "completely unacceptable", Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said following the publication of a damning report.
The Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Stafford Hospital, lost sight of its responsibility to provide safe care, the independent inquiry found.
Mr Brown told MPs the Government was working on plans to "strike off" hospital managers responsible for failures.
At Commons question time, he said more than 300 individual cases were being investigated after the scandal was exposed.
He said: "What happened in this hospital was completely unacceptable. What happened was a management failure in this hospital."
The investigation was launched into events at Stafford Hospital after another report last March from the Healthcare Commission revealed a catalogue of failings at the trust, which also runs Cannock Chase Hospital.
Appalling standards of care put many patients at risk, and between 400 and 1,200 more people died than would have been expected in a three-year period from 2005 to 2008, the commission found.
Inquiry chairman Robert Francis QC made 18 recommendations for both the trust and the Government in his final report after hearing evidence from more than 900 patients and families.
But at Prime Minister's Questions, Tory leader David Cameron said the families of victims "will never be content with an inquiry that was conducted in private".
Mr Brown said: "We understand both the sadness and the sorrow of all the relatives who lost loved ones in the Mid Staffordshire Hospital Trust.
"We know that every single one of those cases where relatives have doubts or questions are now being investigated as individual cases.
