Patients at risk as hospitals fail to improve

HEALTH watchdogs have been blasted for a “culture of complacency” that is putting patients’ lives at risk at 32 hospitals which have failed to improve standards two years after being ordered to take action.

NHS, failing hospitals, NHS watchdog, poor NHS, NHS problems, Watchdogs say there's a culture of complacency amongst the NHS [GETTY]

NHS regulator the Care Quality Commission identified failings that included dirty or unsafe conditions and patients not being fed or cared for properly.

Last night Sir Robert Francis, who led inquiries into scandals at Mid-Stafford and Alder Hey Hospitals, attacked the CQC’s “culture of complacency”.

He said “tolerance of non-compliance for long periods of time” was a “risk to safety”.

Sir Robert, himself a CQC member, added: “It becomes a sort of acceptance that this has happened.

“Actually what you’re looking at is a period of risk to which people are being exposed because nothing is being done about these matters.”

Actually what you’re looking at is a period of risk to which people are being exposed because nothing is being done about these matters

Sir Robert Francis

The hospitals, which include United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust, Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals Trust and University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay Foundation Trust, are all currently under special measures and are subjected to close scrutiny.

CQC chief executive David Behan admitted the situation was “not acceptable” and said action was being taken to tackle the problems.

The CQC has come under fire in the past for not being tough enough on failing hospitals, particularly over the maternity scandal at Furness Hospital at Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria where at least 16 babies and two mothers have died through neglect over an eight-year period.

Last year it was revealed that criticism of the trust running the hospital in a 2010 report had been deleted by CQC officials.

The Department of Health is expected to highlight CQC’s failure to act in a review due later this year.

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