Health watchdog cover-up ‘went right to the top’

Furness General Hospital following allegations that health bosses covered up a failure to investigate where mothers and babies died through neglect.

The Care Quality Commission’s former chief executive Cynthia Bower was present during a discussion of the deletion of an internal review which criticised the regulator’s inspections of University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust, where a number of mothers and babies died.

Ms Bower, who today resigned from her current post as a non-executive trustee of the Skills for Health lobbying body, was named by CQC officials following pressure to identify those involved with the cover-up.

Her deputy, Jill Finney, and media manager Anna Jefferson, were both also present when the deletion was discussed, a CQC spokesman said.

Ms Jefferson today said: “I would never have conspired to cover up anything which could have led to a better understanding of what went wrong in the regulation of this hospital and I am devastated that I have been implicated in this way.”

When the report was published yesterday, the names of those involved had been redacted, and the CQC said it had chosen to remove the names following legal advice.

But after receiving fresh advice, the watchdog decided to publish the names, a spokesman said.

Louise Dineley, the author of the internal review, told independent investigators that Ms Finney had ordered the deletion of the report and Ms Bower and Ms Jefferson had “verbally agreed”.

Ms Dineley, head of regulatory and risk quality at the CQC, claimed that Ms Finney said to her “read my lips” when she gave the instruction.

When Ms Finney was interviewed by the authors of the latest report, she told them that Ms Jefferson, who is a current employee at the regulator, said: “Are you kidding me? This can never be in a public domain nor subject to FoI (a Freedom of Information request)!”

But Ms Jefferson today said: “This quote is completely untrue. I cannot imagine why my manager would have put these words in my mouth - and in fact she has since said she did not attribute this quote to me.

“On the basis that the quote is false, uncorroborated and has since been retracted, I am appalled that it appears in the report.

“The thought of what the families who have lost babies at this hospital have gone through is heartbreaking.”