What now for our region's hospitals?
Hospitals across the Black Country and Staffordshire today pledged to learn lessons from the inquiry into appalling care standards at Stafford Hospital, as it emerged potentially dozens of legal cases may be brought across the region.
Health trusts including the Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust and Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals are among at least 10 nationally where former patients and families have contacted law firm Leigh Day, the solicitors that represented 120 of the victims of Stafford Hospital's lapses in standards between 2005 and 2008.
Lawyers are investigating the complaints but have not launched legal action against the trusts.
And other health chiefs at hospitals like New Cross in Wolverhampton and Walsall Manor, who are not under investigation, say they will be looking carefully at the contents of the 1,782-page report by Robert Francis QC into how executives and other authorities failed to act properly to deal with complaints about Stafford Hospital, where up to 1,200 people died due to poor care and relatives told horror stories of patients left without basic food and drink.
And New Cross chief executive David Loughton revealed today the hospital is top of a national league table for preventing superbug MRSA, having had no cases at all in more than three-and-a-half years. London-based Leigh Day is investigating around five complaints concerning Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs Sandwell Hospital in West Bromwich and City Hospital in Birmingham, but has the trust is only aware of one dating from 2009 and has not been given details of the claim or allegations.
Spokesman Vanya Rogers said: "We carried out a full investigation at the time of the original complaint and made a thorough response on the issues raised. Whilst we know we do not always get things right, our investigation did not find failings in the care of this patient. We will review this again once we have heard the allegations.
"We aim to ensure we provide a high quality of care for all our patients, but recognise this may not always be the experience of patients and their families. We use complaints and claims to help us learn from and improve that care." Paula Clark, chief executive at the Dudley group, which includes Russells Hall, said: "I would like to reassure our patients and their families that we do everything in our power to ensure patients are safe and well cared. We welcome all information that will help us with our efforts to improve our patient care.
"We ensure we learn lessons from complaints and concerns raised by patients. We offer face to face meetings with complainants to help us understand how their experience made them or their families feel and we fully investigate all complaints." Lyn Hill-Tout, chief executive of Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, said lessons had already been learned from what went on at Stafford, adding: "We try every day to continue to improve the care we provide to our patients." Emma Jones, a lawyer from Leigh Day, said the firm was looking into bringing cases under the Human Rights Act, suggesting that patients had been deprived of their right to life or been made to suffer degrading treatment.
Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust chief executive Mr Loughton said: "Kindness is a powerful medicine and caring staff are the health service's biggest asset. We will always work hard to make that impression."
