Department of Health is not interested in improving quality, inquiry is told

doi:10.1136/bmj.d3789

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Clare Dyer

¹BMJ

The Department of Health has a culture “that does not want bad news,” the head of the monitoring unit which spotted high death rates in emergency care at Stafford Hospital has told the public inquiry into standards of care at the hospital.

Brian Jarman, director of the Dr Foster Unit at Imperial College London, said patients and clinicians were divorced from the way the NHS was run, which was extremely centralised. “Unfortunately, I believe that the political importance to a government in the centre to have a good news story, …