Barry Stamps Political Diary

It’s difficult to come to terms with the appalling news about Stafford Hospital. Everyone knew that the report from the Healthcare Commission into the above average death rate at the hospital would be bad, but I’m sure no-one was prepared for what the finding were. Perhaps we should have realized that something was afoot when Toni Brisby the Chairman of the Trust and Martin Yates the Chief stepped down from their post a couple of weeks ago.

At the time all the local press reported that both had resigned from their post, but it has now emerged that in at least Mr. Yates case he had merely stood aside and was still on the hospital payroll and was receiving his full pay! What is interesting is that no one at the Hospital or indeed on the Board tried to put the record straight, instead everyone seemed to want to hide exactly what was happening. By taking this stance the two people who could answer the questions and criticisms about the hospitals failings effectively side stepped the issue and left other people to pick up the pieces.

In my mind this leaves yet another cloud over the current Hospital Board. First and foremost public confidence in the hospital has to be rebuilt and I’m concerned that with way the current board has acted over the past months this will be an impossible task. Perhaps the only way this can happen is for the whole of the management board to be replaced. With this in mind I do hope the Health Secretary Alan Johnson will see fit to remove the whole of the existing board and replace it with members in which the local community can once again have trust!