Stafford Hospital 'breached NHS values', says Health Secretary Andy Burnham
Feb 24 2010 By Ben Padley & Trevor Mason, Press Association
Failings in patient care at Stafford Hospital were a "fundamental breach" of the core values of the NHS, Health Secretary Andy Burnham has said.
He said an independent report into the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the hospital, delivered a "damning verdict on a dysfunctional organisation".
Mr Burnham said the Government accepted all 18 recommendations from the inquiry's chairman, Robert Francis QC, after he heard evidence from more than 900 patients and families.
He told MPs he would consult on a new system of accreditation for senior NHS managers and ask Monitor, the independent regulator of NHS foundation trusts, to consider "de-authorising" the Mid Staffordshire trust.
The Government is looking at ways to prevent failing NHS managers getting jobs in other trusts, he said, and he called on foundation trust boards to hold meetings in public.
Mr Burnham was speaking after the publication of the report into the failings at Stafford. The probe was launched 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.
In his Commons statement Mr Burnham said: "There can no longer be any excuse for denying the enormity of what has occurred. The care provided was totally unacceptable and a fundamental breach of the values of the NHS."
He added: "This report delivers a damning verdict on a dysfunctional organisation. It was principally a local failure but I accept there are national lessons to learn."
Shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley said the report had set out "in the most compelling and indeed horrific character many of the sufferings of those patients and their relatives".
Mr Burnham said the trust had lost sight of its "fundamental responsibility to provide safe care".
He said: "This dysfunctionality extended to the way they managed targets in the trust and the failure to put in place adequate staffing levels to provide safe patient care."
