Four doctors involved with Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, three of them in management roles, are facing a fitness to practise hearing before the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service.

The news emerged after publication of the report of the public inquiry into lessons to be learnt from “appalling” care experienced by patients at the trust, in what has been called the biggest scandal to hit the NHS.1

The inquiry, by Robert Francis QC, uncovered what he described as “a story of appalling and unnecessary suffering of hundreds of people” in a system that “ignored the warning signs and put corporate self interest and cost control ahead of patients and their safety.” He said the evidence had shown “that an unhealthy and dangerous culture pervaded not only the trust . . . …