Ex-MP tells of Stafford Hospital fears in the 1990s

A former Staffordshire MP has said he had serious concerns in the early 1990s about Stafford Hospital.

Tony Wright told the Francis Inquiry about his fears over the way the hospital was managed.

Mr Wright took some complaints from constituents to the Parliamentary Ombudsmen but he accepted that he never raised his worries with anyone other than hospital management.

Mr Wright, who is the first former MP from Staffordshire to appear before the inquiry, said: "I felt that there were serious leadership issues at both executive and non-executive level, and I remember wondering who was actually running Stafford Hospital.

"This word culture has appeared regularly, and I think it is the key word.

"Cultures are not made or unmade in a short space of time.

"They are things that take years to develop, even if their consequences only culminate in a certain period," Mr Wright added.

"I was unimpressed by the leadership of the trust over a very long period."

Mr Wright, MP for Cannock Chase from 1992 until last May, said the hospital was regularly in financial difficulties and seemed "always to have a difficulty in getting a grip of what was happening".

He recalled one incident in the early 1990s when he was told by an ambulance paramedic about concerns over the care at Stafford.

He said: "A local ambulanceman told me that it was quite normal for crews to bypass Stafford and to go to Stoke because they were not happy about what was happening at Stafford."

Mr Wright said that he received some "serious" complaints which raised "rather basic quality of care issues" which he raised with former hospital boss Martin Yeates.

Mr Wright added: "What did concern me was that I could point to a series of complaints in relation to quality of care.

"I took them up with the trust, and they told me they were onto them."

He said the process of rating hospitals at the time was not good enough, adding that "nobody" had confidence in it.