CQC publish names of people claimed responsible for cover up of failings

The CQC has published the names of people within the organisation who it is claimed aided the deletion of a critical report of the CQC to hide the failings within the watchdog.

This follows the report published by the CQC yesterday highlighting and apologising for their failure to detect the problems at Morecambe Hospital for the unnecessary deaths of people at the Trust since 2008.

In the report Grant Thornton said that the actions of staff at CQC ‘might well have constituted a deliberate cover-up.’

In a letter to the Government, the CQC has described their reason for changing their decision to publish the names of the staff and ex staff members, written and sent by chairman David Prior and chief executive David Behan.

The letter said: “As you know, this is a report CQC always wanted in the public domain as part of being an open and transparent organisation. We are changing the culture of the organisation and the commissioning and publication of this report symbolises that approach.

"You will be aware that we took legal advice in order to ensure that we were able to publish the report at our public board meeting. That advice raised certain risks if the report was not anonymised, including breaches of the Data Protection Act.

"We have reviewed the issues again with our legal advisors (and taken into account the comments of the Information Commissioner). In the light of this further consideration, we have come to the view that the overriding public interest in transparency and accountability gives us sufficient grounds to disclose the names of the individuals who were anonymised in the report."

There were four members of staff present when the discussion about deletion occured:

Mr E: Cynthia Bower - former Chief Executive - resigned Mr F: Anna Jefferson - Media Manager - current employee Mr G: Jill Finney - former Deputy Chief Executive - resigned Mr J: Louise Dineley - Head of Regulatory Risk & Quality - current employee

Other individuals interviewed by Grant Thornton about the meeting but not present:

Mr B: Dame Jo Williams - former Chair - resigned Mr D: Amanda Sherlock - former Director of Operations - redundant

The other senior individuals referred to in the report are:

Mr C: Louise Guss - former Director of Governance and Legal Services - redundant Mr K: Dr Martin Marshall - former Board member - term ended Mr N: Sue McMillan - former Regional Director, North West - current employee To read more on the story visit: www.carehome.co.uk/news/article.cfm/id/1560285/the-government-and-cqc-take-action-as-report-on-morecombe-bay-maternity-failings-revealed