NHS needs 'sweeping reforms'

Julie Bailey, founder of Cure the NHS said: "This is the worst report in the history of the NHS.

"Hundreds of people have lost their lives and nobody has been held to account for those failings.

"It's about time that somebody was held to account."

• Health
• NHS
• Stafford Hospital

Robert Francis QC, the chairman of a public inquiry into Stafford Hospital, is set to deliver a damning verdict on the whole of the health service, according to reports.

The Sunday Telegraph said his report would suggest:

• Greater regulation of NHS managers and an overhaul of training for nurses and unqualified health care assistants
• Radical changes to the supervision and regulation of health care are required to protect patients and to respond to a “tide of public anger” about the scandal

• "Systemic" failings in NHS regulation

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• NHS
• Stafford Hospital

• In 2009, a highly-critical report by the Healthcare Commission revealed a catalogue of failings at the trust and said "appalling standards" put patients at risk.
• Between 400 and 1,200 more people died than would have been expected in a three-year period from 2005 to 2008, the Commission said.

• In February 2010, an independent inquiry into events at the trust found it had "routinely neglected patients".

• Health
• NHS
• Stafford Hospital

A public inquiry into the serious failings of an NHS hospital, where patients suffered "appalling" treatment, will recommend an overhaul of regulation to ensure poor managers are replaced and better training for nurses and healthcare assistants, the Sunday Telegraph reported.

The £11 million inquiry, which was commissioned in 2010, examined what went wrong at the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust between January 2005 and March 2009. Inquiry chair Robert Francis QC said the report will be published later this month.

• Health
• NHS
• Stafford Hospital