Chairman orders public to be excluded from Stafford Hospital inquiry

Members of the public have been prevented from hearing evidence at the inquiry into the scandal of care at Stafford Hospital.

Inquiry chairman Robert Francis QC yesterday ordered the public and members of the press to be excluded from hearing part of the evidence from Janet Robinson about her son John Moore-Robinson.

He died in April 2006 after doctors at Stafford failed to spot his ruptured spleen.

It was the second time in two days Mr Francis has used a restriction order — on Monday he ruled the names of nurses and doctors implicated in poor care could not be made public.

He said his decision to remove the public was necessary in order to prevent a possible criminal case being put at risk — despite the fact no-one has yet been charged by police or the Crown Prosecution Service.

The majority of Mrs Robinson's evidence was given in public. She gave details of how her 20-year-old son was cared for at the hospital following a mountain bike accident on

Cannock Chase before being sent home by doctors who said he had bruised ribs.

In fact he had a ruptured spleen and died a short time later after collapsing at home when he called paramedics. Mrs Robinson, from Coalville, Leicester, described how she received a letter from former hospital chief executive Martin Yeates in 2008.

He apologised for what happened and said he hoped the family would be able to "put this matter behind you" and "move on."

Mrs Robinson said: "I don't know how on earth he thinks we can possibly do that.

"I can never ever put John's death behind me, it will always be with me."

The inquiry has been told that Government Ministers failed to listen or act on concerns about the hospital.

Julie Bailey, founder of Cure the NHS, said in one incident when the campaign group visited the Houses of Parliament she met former Health Minister Ben Bradshaw.

She said Mr Bradshaw mistakenly referred the group back to Mr Yeates, who had resigned months earlier in March 2009.

"What I was telling Mr Bradshaw was that problems were ongoing at the hospital, and basically what he was telling me to do was to go back to the complaints procedure at the hospital, which seemed particularly bizarre. He really didn't have a grasp of what was going on at the hospital, let alone the NHS," she added.

In another episode she told the inquiry how the then Health Secretary Alan Johnson visited the Breaks Cafe in Stafford to meet Cure the NHS, after the publication of the damning Healthcare Commission report. She said he told the group he would consider holding a public inquiry but later she found out he had already appeared on television news saying "categorically" he would not hold a public inquiry.