We made errors over Stafford Hospital, admits Andy Burnham

Former Health Secretary Andy Burnham has admitted that errors allowed appalling standards of care at Stafford Hospital to go undetected – and blamed managers for their "cavalier attitude".

Appearing before the Francis Inquiry yesterday, Mr Burnham accepted his belief that the hospital's standards of care would be "rigorously" investigated before it was granted Foundation Trust status in 2008 was incorrect.

He revealed his decision to put the hospital forward for Foundation Trust status was made on just a four-line summary presented by civil servants with no mention of patient care.

A committee of civil servants had discussed the hospital and described it as a "borderline" case that was "difficult to support."

The status gave the hospital greater freedom and was approved just days before an investigation was launched into its standards of care that later found hundreds of patients could have needlessly died.

During his evidence yesterday Mr Burnham claimed the hospital would be subjected to an "intensive and rigorous" inspection by the Foundation Trust agency Monitor after he gave the bid the green light.

But when confronted with a series of statements by earlier witnesses saying Monitor in fact did not look at the quality of patient care he said the reality was "180 degrees away from what my understanding was."