Health Secretary Visits Stafford Hospital

An exclusive interview with the Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt reveals his fears that Stafford Hospital, where a poor standard of care was blamed for hundreds of patient deaths, may not be an isolated case.

Next month the report of a major public inquiry into the Stafford crisis lands on Mr Hunt's desk. He paid a private visit to the hospital today and told Central Tonight: "I don't believe this is an issue that just applies to Stafford Hospital." He spoke to our correspondent Keith Wilkinson.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt today visited Stafford Hospital. He met doctors, nurses and care assistants, as well as campaigners from Cure the NHS.

This comes a month before the publication of a report into the hospital's alleged failings.

In an exclusive interview with ITV Central, Mr Hunt said:

"Quality of care should be as important as quality of treatment. People have confidence in treatment, but are less confident about consistency of care.

He added:

"I want to understand and learn lessons from Stafford...I think there are other places in the system where pockets of these problems are happening.

"We need to work out how we're going to stop some of these tragedies happening.

"There have been improvements - but you can always go further."