How health watchdog covered-up baby care failings

Joshua Titcombe from Dalton, Cumbria, as the father of the newborn boy who died in a hospital where mothers and babies died through neglect says claims that the healthcare watchdog covered up a failure to investigate are "shocking".

But Prime Minister David Cameron’s spokesman insisted the Government had already taken “very clear, strong action” to reform the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

The comments came after a damning report concluded that the watchdog might have deliberately suppressed an internal review which highlighted weaknesses in its inspections of University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Trust.

“What occurred was... deeply disturbing and appalling,” the premier’s spokesman said. “What he thinks is absolutely the right thing to have done is to have changed the organisation in the way that has been done.”

The Prime Minister’s spokesman said the CQC had been “radically overhauled” as part of efforts to embed a “culture of care” in the health service.

“A new senior leadership team, changes in the structure that that team has overseen,” he said.

“Does the CQC need a radical overhaul? Does that need to be seen through? Yes.”

The spokesman declined to say that any culpable executives should not be allowed to work in the health service again.

Local MP John Woodcock said that if the regulator and hospital bosses had been “up to their job and open about failings”, the deaths of mothers and newborn babies could have been prevented at Furness General Hospital - which is run by the trust.

The independent report concludes that there is “persuasive evidence” that a senior CQC official ordered the review to be deleted because it was “negative and therefore damaging for CQC”.

The authors wrote: “We have asked ourselves whether such an instruction to delete the report could be characterised as a ‘cover-up’ and we believe that it could.

“The alleged decision to suppress it may constitute a broader and ongoing cover-up.”

Concerns about the maternity unit at Furness General Hospital in Cumbria came to light in 2008, but the CQC gave the Morecambe Bay trust the all-clear in 2010.

In 2011, an official at the organisation was tasked with reviewing the CQC’s regulatory decisions for the trust.

But in March last year the official was ordered to delete the report of his findings by a senior manager because it was “potentially damaging to the CQC’s reputation”, according to the latest independent report.

The manager denies ordering his employee to suppress the information. But the authors of the latest report, from management consultants Grant Thornton, conclude there is “corroborative evidence” that there was an instruction to delete the internal review.

The CQC admitted that the latest report revealed “just how poor” its oversight of the trust was in 2010.

“This is not the way things should have happened. It is not the way things will happen in the future,” a spokesman said.

“The report shows how CQC provided false assurances to the public and to Monitor in 2010. We were slow to identify failings at the trust and then slow to take action. We should not have registered UHMB without conditions.

“We let people down, and we apologise for that.”

The spokesman said there was “no evidence of a systematic cover-up” but said the alleged deletion of the report is “evidence of a failure of leadership within CQC and a dysfunctional relationship between the executive and the board”.

He added: “There is evidence of a defensive, reactive and insular culture that resulted in behaviour that should never have happened.”

David Prior, chairman of the CQC, said: “CQC’s chief executive, David Behan, was absolutely right to commission an independent report into CQC’s handling of the registration and subsequent monitoring of UHMB - and absolutely right to publish it in full.

“The publication draws a line in the sand for us. What happened in the past was wholly unacceptable. The report confirms our view that, at a senior level the organisation was dysfunctional. The board and the senior executive team have been radically changed.”

The father of a baby who died at Furness General Hospital in 2008 said the revelations were “shocking”. James Titcombe’s son, Joshua, died at just nine days old after staff failed to spot and treat an infection.

In 2011, Cumbria Police launched an investigation into a cluster of maternity deaths at the trust - including that of Joshua.

Mr Titcombe told Sky News: “It embodies everything that is wrong with the culture in the NHS. It’s something that’s been rotten really about the system.

We need it to change. We need that culture to change.

“Patient safety should be the number one priority, and organisations that work within regulation need to be aligned with that principle.”

Mr Titcombe said he was concerned that the report was anonymous, adding: “There are questions about whether that reflects the direction the NHS should be going in, in terms of openness and transparency.”