Hospitals trusts hammered over major failures

11 NHS hospitals are being placed under special measures after NHS inquiry revealed major failures that lead to the death of thousands of patients.

08:20 18 July 2013

After reviewing 14 NHS hospitals over high mortality rates, Sir Bruce Keogh, medical director of the NHS, found that none of the 14 hospitals was providing ‘consistently high quality care to patients’.

 

Because of this, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has said that 11 of the hospital trusts will be put into special measures to ensure that they carry out urgent improvements. 

 

Sir Bruce said: “Higher mortality rates do not always point to deaths which could have been avoided but they do act as a ‘smoke alarm’ indicator that there could be issues with the quality of care.

 

“Not one of these trusts has been given a clean bill of health by my review teams. These reviews have been highly rigorous and uncovered previously undisclosed problems.

 

“Mediocrity is simply not good enough and, based on the findings from this review I have set out an achievable ambition which will help these hospitals improve dramatically over the next two years.”

 

The hospitals that will be placed on special measures include Tameside Hospital NHS Foundation trust and Burton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.