Public Inquiry into Stafford Hospital and ‘The Francis Report’

Posted 07/02/2013

This inquiry was published yesterday. The head of the inquiry started his statement by saying there had been “appalling and unnecessary suffering” and that patients and their families had been failed by a system which “put corporate self interest and cost control ahead of patients and their safety”. There is mention of ‘needless deaths’ and ‘abuse and neglect’.  Shocking standards were ‘allowed to continue for years’.

Robert Francis QC who led the inquiry has made 290 recommendations at the heart of which is one that there must be change to ‘patient centred culture’. The failings were found to go from the top to the bottom of the NHS.  

Trefine Maynard, a clinical negligence specialist at Ashtons Legal, comments: “This report makes devastating criticisms of Stafford Hospital but also comments on many failures that are recognised to occur in some other hospitals also. It is shattering to realise that this picture of poor and uncaring attitudes and failure to show any true interest in patients well being is aimed at our health system. It is shaming and humiliating to think that anyone involved in health care could have allowed this to go on.

For decades we have been used to boasting about our public health system and how much better it is at providing real access to health care for all than countries like America. There will always be places where care fails, that is inevitable, but to hear that these appalling failures went on for years and were ignored or, even worse, were not picked up on by senior NHS managers and regulators for so long is heartbreaking. I cannot help but worry that these failures in regulation and in investigating and responding to complaints of failure of care on the ward, is not limited to just one hospital.

We see too many patients and their families who report lack of care on the wards and a lack of respect and/or treatment from clinical staff. The root cause of these failures is clearly now going to be the subject of a great deal of further inquiry. What is most important is to put a philosophy of real care back at the heart of the NHS and the delivery of care within in it.  There will be very many doctors, nurses and other health professionals who will be equally distraught at the picture painted by this report and whose whole purpose in doing the jobs they do is to care for their patients. I hope that these individuals are given reassurance and encouragement by the steps now taken to put true concern for patients back at the very heart of care in the NHS.”