Former NHS chief executive claims the Francis enquiry has 'let the Government off the hook'

The Francis inquiry, which looked into the maltreatment of patients at the Mid Staffordshire Hospital, has been criticised by a former NHS chief executive.

David Hands, former NHS chief executive of North Wales Health has told the British Medical Journal that he felt the Francis report did not identify correctly the people responsible for the problems at Mid Staffordshire, which controversially found the hospital’s failures to have caused up to 1,200 deaths due to poor care between 2005 and 2009.

Talking about the report looking into the scandal, Professor Hands said it had “allowed the Government to blame frontline clinicians rather than those in charge”.

He said: “Francis focuses blame on the local trust and professional behaviour” and “provides little more than embellishment of the facts established in his first report”.

In the report, Sir Robert Francis was highly critical of the hospital’s approach to the scandal, saying: “A number of staff and managers at the hospital, rather than reflecting on their role and responsibility, have attempted to minimise the significance of the Healthcare Commission’s findings.”

Sir Robert Francis blamed ‘a fear of culture’ among staff for the failures, but Professor Hands has said that the report “has enabled politicians to indulge in characteristic evasion.”

Professor Hands criticised Sir David Nicholson, chief executive of the English NHS, claiming that in response to concerns of whistle-blowers, he commissioned superficial exercises and inadequate reviews of management consultants.

In describing his experience of giving evidence at the 2011 Francis enquiry, Professor Hands said: “I was shown secret Department of Health papers that untruthfully recorded that my concerns had been fully and impartially investigated.”

The Francis enquiry recommended that there was cultural change in the leadership of the NHS Trust after the scandal, but Professor Hands has spoken of the Government and NHS chief executive, saying that they need to “remember their responsibility to be visibly committed to the Nolan principles for the conduct of public life: selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty, and leadership”.

Commenting in the BMJ article, Bruce Keogh, medical director of NHS England, formerly the NHS Commissioning Board said: “We’ve got an NHS that employs 1.4m people, and each and every one of those people has a contribution to make.”

Mr Keogh added that quality should start within an organisation itself, and continued: “Every professional that has to deal with patients sets the tone for quality of that organisation, and the role of the organisation is to set an environment which encourages appropriate behaviour in that encounter and supports it.”

Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust has just been put into administration by health regulator Monitor.

It is the first NHS foundation trust to face administration.

David Bennett, chief executive of watchdog Monitor, said: “It is important that people in Mid Staffordshire know that they can still access services as usual at Stafford and Cannock hospitals while the trust special administration process is ongoing.”