Scandal-hit NHS ‘must be centred on patients’

The head of the NHS Confederation said Wednesday’s publication of a report into Stafford Hospital would rightly expose failings which led to what a previous independent inquiry described as “appalling” standards of care.

The confederation’s chief executive, Mike Farrar, pledged that NHS leaders would respond positively to the report and work to change the culture of the NHS.

Predicting that the release of the report would be “one of the darkest days” in the history of the NHS, Mr Farrar acknowledged that changes needed to be made to make patient feedback easier and give the public a clearer picture of how local services were performing.

He said: “The people in charge of running our health services should rightly be held to account when they fail to act in the interests of patients.” But he warned: “What we don’t want is a simplistic blame game, excessive inspection or micromanagement.

“These are false gods that externalise problems rather than putting responsibility where it belongs – in the board room and on the front line.”

It is understood the inquiry chairman, Robert Francis QC, will recommend wide-ranging reforms of the NHS.

A separate highly critical report by the Healthcare Commission in 2009 revealed a catalogue of failings at the trust and said it had put patients at risk. Between 400 and 1,200 more people died than would have been expected from 2005 to 2008, the commission said.

In February 2010, an independent inquiry found the trust had “routinely neglected patients”.