Mid Staffordshire hospital trust’s services will be divided between two neighbouring hospitals

Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, which was hit by one of the worst scandals over poor quality care in NHS history, is to be dissolved.

The health secretary for England, Jeremy Hunt, confirmed that management of the trust’s two hospitals, Stafford and Cannock Chase, would be transferred to neighbouring NHS trusts and that services at Stafford Hospital would be downgraded.

Hunt, who had the final say, accepted the recommendations of three trust special administrators appointed to tackle Mid Staffordshire’s burgeoning deficit and to draw up a plan to ensure clinical and financial stability.1

But in a departure from the administrators’ …