Sacked NHS managers to be banned from working in hospitals ever again to prevent repeat of Mid Staffs scandal



Failed bosses to be barred from moving to another part of the NHS

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt unveils response to Francis Report into Mid Staffs scandal in which up to 1,200 patients died needlessly

New inspector of hospitals to act as 'whistleblower-in-chief'

Trainee nurses to spend as year learning how to care for the sick



NHS managers responsible for poor care or guilty of covering it up should be banned from working in a hospital ever again, Jeremy Hunt said yesterday.

The Health Secretary unveiled a new blacklisting system under which failed hospital directors would be effectively ‘struck off’ and prevented from moving to another job in the Health Service.

He indicated that the barring regime would prevent Martin Yeates, the chief executive of Mid Staffordshire trust at the time when up to 1,200 died needlessly, from ever running an NHS trust again.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt (left) told MPs that managers who fail patients will be struck off and barred from working in the NHS again and NHS chief executive Sir David Nicholson (right) who has come under fire



But, despite conceding that his failings as a manager contributed to the scandal, Mr Hunt yet again rode to the defence of current NHS chief executive David Nicholson.

Mr Hunt said Mr Nicholson, who headed up the local strategic health authority for nine months at the height of the scandal, could not be held solely responsible because he was in charge of too many hospitals at the time.

And, controversially, he praised the under-fire NHS chief executive for having implemented Labour’s drive to slash waiting times so effectively - despite the fact that the target culture has been blamed for the ‘culture of bullying’ which undermined care at Mid Staffs.

The Francis inquiry into poor care at the hospital, which reported last month, recommended that poor managers should be blacklisted and barred from further NHS work. Mr Hunt said yesterday that he would accept this recommendation.

Scroll down to watch the Health Secretary's Commons speech

A series of measures will be enforced in response to the needless deaths of up to 1,200 patients at Stafford Hospital

He said he wanted to introduce a barring system to ensure that ‘there is a mechanism in place which prevents unsuitable board level executives and non-executives from moving to new senior positions elsewhere in the system’.

Ministers are considering whether the barring system could be extended to managers below board level, in a bid to end the ‘revolving door’ scandal whereby poor adm

MID STAFFS GROUP: NHS SHAKE-UP DOES NOT GO FAR ENOUGH

The changes announced by Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt do not go far enough, a leading campaigner for changes in the NHS said today.

Julie Bailey, who set up the Cure The NHS group after her mother Bella died at Stafford Hospital in 2007, said the leadership and the "command and control type management" of the organisation had to change.

She told the BBC: 'I really don't feel the changes go far enough... This was a failing from ward to Whitehall, we lost hundreds of people here. ' I sat through every day of that public inquiry, all the bodies failed, all the bodies had to apologise, and I really don't think that's been addressed in this statement.

'How many more reviews do we need to tell us the one thing that needs to change is the culture that needs to change, the very top, the people that rule the NHS, the leadership, that's what needs to change, and it works all the way down to the front line.

'We need safe staffing levels and the correct skill mix, that's the start that's needed, then we need to look at the training. ' We need a new leader at the top of the NHS, we need a leader that galvanises and inspires the workforce.

'We've got staff who don't want to work for the NHS, we've got patients frightened, older people frightened to go into NHS hospitals.

'This has got to change, and it's not going to change with this style leadership, command and control, we need much more emphasis on the culture and behaviours of the people within the NHS, and that starts at the top.'

inistrators are given pay-offs to leave but then take on new jobs elsewhere in the NHS.

Last week the Mail revealed that up to 2,200 managers had found another job in the NHS after having made redundant since the election.

Most got to keep their pay-offs - many of whom were six figures.

It also emerged that the head of a health trust which had the highest mortality rate in England received almost a quarter of a million pounds in severance pay.

Tony Halsall was paid the sum despite leaving his post at University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust in disgrace. A police probe has now been launched into up to 16 needless baby deaths as well as the deaths of two mothers at its hospitals.

Asked whether the former chief executive of the Mis Staffordshire trust, Martin Yeates, would be barred under the new regime, the Health Secretary indicated that he would.

Mr Yeates was forced to resign after a damning Healthcare Commission study into death rates at his trust.

Mr Hunt said: ‘It’s a bit difficult to answer speculatively about an individual.

‘But let me say this. If you’re asking me: “Should someone who is responsible for the appalling things at Mid Staffs be prevented from ever running a hospital again?” - Yes.’

However, despite his criticisms of Mr Yeates, the Health Secretary continued to stand by Mr Nicholson.

He said: ‘I have an honest difference of opinion with a number of people about David Nicholson’s level of personal responsibility for what happened, but I accept that he was a manager of a system that failed to stop this happening and he shares some responsibility for that.

‘The key point in there is that he was in charge of 50 hospitals for a nine-month period when some of the awful things at Mid-Staffs were happening, and nothing in the system brought that to the surface; nothing in the system forced the managers - not just him but all the managers outside the hospital - to do something about it.

‘What today is about is creating the structure to make it impossible for those kinds of problems to happen without being seen.’

The Health Secretary went on to praise Mr Nicholson, saying: ‘I have looked at the evidence very carefully, and I think it is important to say that this is somebody who brought down waiting times very significantly, which has a very positive impact on people’s care, and has led the charge against MRSA and C. diff which is now at its lowest level ever since we started taking records.’

In the Commons, another Conservative MP called on Mr Nicholson to go over his Mid Staffs failings.

Bill Cash, MP for Stone, told Mr Hunt that one thing missing from yesterday’s announcement was ‘accountability’.