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COMMENT: Culture at Walsall Manor Hospital has to change

The Care Quality Commission inspection report into Walsall Manor Hospital is deeply concerting.

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But many will be forgiven for thinking 'haven't we been here before?'

Short staffing levels attributing to poor care, accusations of bullying management, and a failure to take action even when concerns have been raised.

It all has the all too familiar echoes of the Stafford Hospital scandal.

These are the ills that Sir Robert Francis's inquiry were meant to have exposed and rooted out of the NHS.

But here we are with similar symptoms just down the road.

It is right that the trust will be placed into special measures after being rated as 'inadequate'. It is positive for patients that these failings are being highlighted and not covered up.

The Manor now needs wide-ranging reforms to ensure patients are not put at high risk of avoidable harm.

This medicine may be hard to swallow, but it should not be misconstrued as an attack on the many caring and compassionate staff working tirelessly day and night to keep us well.

But things are going wrong.

And some of that can be traced back to the failure to adequately sort out the problems in Stafford. Rather than ensure safe care was taking place, the hospital was placed into administration and its major functions carved out.

It meant the subsequent burden fell on neighbouring hospitals in Wolverhampton, Walsall and Stoke.

In downgrading Stafford's maternity ward and closing A&E overnight, Walsall has seen a 23 per cent rise in emergency admissions. But staffing levels have not been able to cope.

This is not just a failure of local management, but a failure of the highly-paid administrators who oversaw the breakup, and the Department of Health who tossed Staffordshire patients out into the cold without consideration for them or the impact it would have on their neighbours.

It is crucial that the special measures imposed at Walsall do not repeat the mistakes incurred at Stafford.

Now it is imperative on chief executive Richard Kirby and trust chairman Ben Reid to grasp the nettle.

The culture at Walsall has to change. And it must be instigated by Mr Kirby and Mr Reid. They and their executive board clearly have problems they need to urgently address. But the focus of turning this hospital around must show a commitment to provide safe and sustainable major services. Patients must not be let down again.

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