Published 18 March 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b1141
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b1141

News

Hospital trust sacrificed patient care to financial matters, commission says

Oona Mashta

1 London

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The government’s flagship policy for hospitals to become foundation trusts has been blamed for staff cuts at one trust that compromised patient safety and led to some patients’ deaths, according to the Healthcare Commission.

Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust "significantly" reduced staff in a bid to save money in its drive to become a foundation trust, which resulted in higher than normal death rates in emergency care, an investigation by the health watchdog has found.

The report said, "Its strategic focus was on financial and business matters at a time when the quality of care of its patients admitted as emergencies was well below acceptable standards."

Ian Kennedy, the commission’s chairman, said, "This is a story of appalling standards of care and chaotic systems for looking after patients. There is no doubt that patients will have suffered, and some of them will have died as a result."

He added, "Trusts must . . . [Full text of this article]


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This article has been cited by other articles:

  • Gooderham, P. (2009). Warnings about unsafe systems. BMJ 338: b1372-b1372 [Full text]  

Rapid Responses:

Read all Rapid Responses

Where is the Medical Leadership in this Trust?
Umesh Prabhu
bmj.com, 20 Mar 2009 [Full text]
Hospital trust sacrificed patient care to financial matters
David Allen
bmj.com, 22 Mar 2009 [Full text]
Regulation is not clinical accountability: state-employee failure is not system failure.
William G Pickering
bmj.com, 22 Mar 2009 [Full text]
The significance of warnings about unsafe systems
Peter Gooderham
bmj.com, 23 Mar 2009 [Full text]
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