A full public inquiry is to be held into failings at an NHS hospital that are believed to have contributed to the deaths of hundreds of patients, the Government announced yesterday.
The catalogue of appalling shortfalls in care at Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, and in particular Stafford Hospital, will be covered by the inquiry, which will report back early next year.
The previous Labour Government rejected calls for a full public inquiry into failings at Stafford – and how they were missed repeatedly by managers and regulators – and instead ordering an independent inquiry.
That inquiry, which published its findings in February, found that the hospital “routinely neglected” patients and displayed “systemic failings” in its approach to care. It also found that the Foundation Trust lost sight of its responsibility to provide safe care after managers became preoccupied with cost-cutting and Government targets.
The previous inquiry was launched after a Healthcare Commission report published last year revealed a catalogue of failings at the trust. It concluded that care failings had contributed to unusually high death rates, particularly in emergency care, with between 400 and 1,200 more people dying than would have been expected in a three-year period from 2005 to 2008.
The report, the most damning compiled by the commission on an NHS hospital in England, found that receptionists were given responsibility for carrying out medical checks and patients were left screaming in pain for hours. It raised serious questions about the monitoring and regulation of the trust, which was awarded elite foundation status and continued to receive positive annual reports despite its many problems.
Announcing the public inquiry yesterday, the Prime Minister insisted a public inquiry was important so the people of Stafford could “tell their story”.
“I remember going to Stafford and meeting with the families, many of which had lost loved ones, some of whom went into hospital for a routine operation but because the standards of hygiene were not right, because the management was not right, and because frankly targets were being pursued rather than clinical outcomes, people died needlessly,” Mr Cameron told MPs.
Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, said evidence would be held in public in order to “combat a culture of secrecy and restore public confidence”. He criticised the former Government for not putting the process in place before.
“We know only too well what happened at Mid Staffordshire, in all its harrowing detail, and the failings of the trust itself,” he told the Commons. “But, we are still little closer to understanding how it was allowed to happen by the wider system.The families of those patients who suffered so dreadfully deserve to know. And so too does every NHS patient in this country.”
The inquiry will be chaired by Robert Francis QC and deliver its conclusions by next March.
Mr Lansley said the Government was acting immediately to give more protection to NHS whistleblowers and strip away distorting targets. “At Mid Staffs safety was not the priority — it was undermined by politically-motivated, process targets,” he added.
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