Former chief claimed hospital was failing

The former chief executive of Stafford Hospital was allowed a negotiated settlement to leave his job despite a report recommending he be disciplined for his actions, it has emerged.

The Francis Report has shed new details on the way Mr Yeates was allowed to leave his job and reveals for the first time his own view of the hospital he was in charge of for more than three years describing it as already failing when he arrived.

Although Mr Yeates claimed to be too ill to give evidence Robert Francis QC said he accepted his reasons after commissioning an independent medical assessment of the NHS boss.

Mr Yeates said he was "appointed to a failing organisation lacking in any governance arrangements and suffering from poor leadership".

Mr Yeates said there was a "major underlying financial deficit" in 2006/07 but during his time as chief executive he believed "the organisation has been turned around to one with a sustainable future, embedding robust governance arrangements and improving quality and standards of care".

Mr Yeates, stepped down last March in the wake of the Healthcare Commission report and resigned in May after an investigation found he should have been disciplined. That report said Martin Yeates beared a "commensurately large share of the responsibility" for failures at the hospital.

The Francis report, made public yesterday, said that instead of taking action against the chief executive, members of the trust's remuneration committee made a decision to negotiate a settlement for him to leave to get "value for money".

In his conclusions Robert Francis said: "Whatever Mr Yeates may have believed had been achieved by the time of his departure, concerns about patients' experiences and of staff about governance and staffing issues had not been resolved in reality."