Minister apologises over 'appalling' harm at failed NHS Trust
Patients at a failed NHS trust suffered "appalling" harm because its senior leadership team "shirked their legal and moral responsibilities".
Health minister Steve Barclay apologised on behalf of the Government in the Commons after an independent review found a catalogue of failings at Liverpool Community Health NHS Trust.
The report by Dr Bill Kirkup, who also investigated the Morecambe Bay scandal at Furness General Hospital, found the organisation to be "dysfunctional from the outset".
MP Rosie Cooper, who led calls for an investigation into the trust, likened it to a "dictatorship" and said cover-ups and backdoor deals had to end in the health service.
Mr Barclay, making a statement to MPs, said the behaviour of the trust represented a similar "moral drift" to that displayed in the Mid Staffordshire NHS hospital trust scandal.
He said: "
Mr Barclay outlined some of the report's findings, which he said gave a "clear, forensic, and at times a devastating account of failures" at the trust.
He added: "
Despite the problems, the report noted the trust was determined to achieve foundation status and set "infeasible financial targets that damaged patient services".
Mr Barclay said: "
Mr Barclay told MPs the Government accepted all the recommendations in the report and would seek to implement them as soon as possible.
Labour MP Ms Cooper, a member of the Health select committee, said she wanted to thank Dr Kirkup "on behalf of the staff and the patients in Liverpool who suffered really badly at the hands of this, I want to say dictatorship, regime, whatever it was".
She said it was "simply staggering" that senior staff at the trust "were able to inflict such harm on staff and patients and just walk into other senior NHS jobs with six-figure salaries".
She added: "Why wasn't the chief executive and this board fired? Why weren't they sacked? It is incomprehensible."
Ms Cooper warned of "another potential LCH" at the Wirral's hospital trust, adding it was important that justice is seen to be done.
Sarah Wollaston, Tory chairwoman of the Health select committee, said:
Mr Barclay said: