Hunt: NHS Errors 'Cost 3,000 Lives Last Year'

Around 3,000 NHS patients died needlessly last year because of poor care, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt will say in a speech later.

He will also confirm that nearly 500,000 people were harmed unnecessarily as he calls on the NHS to end the "silent scandal of errors".

Mr Hunt's words come after allegations that top bosses at the Care Quality Commission were involved in a cover-up of its failure to investigate a spate of baby deaths.

One of the women implicated, ex-CQC chief executive Cynthia Bower, has resigned from her current post as a non-executive trustee of the Skills for Health lobbying body, while her former deputy Jill Finney has been sacked as chief commercial officer of internet domain company Nominet.

The CQC revealed both women and media manager Anna Jefferson were present during a discussion about deleting an internal review which criticised the CQC's inspections of University Hospitals of Morcambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust, where a number of mothers and babies had died.

The three women deny that they tried to cover up the report and Ms Bower insists she "gave no instruction to delete" the report.

Mr Hunt told Sky News' Sunrise programme that the NHS was not "in crisis" and said a new system of tough inspections would help prevent a repeat of the Morecambe scandal.

He also suggested former executives responsible for the alleged cover-up at the CQC could be stripped of their pensions.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "These are very, very serious allegations and they should have very, very serious consequences if they are proved.

"I know the CQC are looking into disciplinary procedures and what can be done, what sanctions are available, whether you can have forfeiture of pensions, all those things."

In a speech at University College London Hospitals, Mr Hunt will reveal that 325 "never events" were recorded last year - incidents so unacceptable that they should never happen.

He is expected to say the UK has become "so numbed to the inevitability of patient harm that we accept the unacceptable" and call for a more open culture where errors are constantly revealed and reduced.

"The facts are clear," Mr Hunt will say.

"Last year there were nearly half a million incidents that led to patients being harmed, and 3,000 people lost their lives while in the care of the NHS.

"It is time for a major rethink - a different kind of culture and leadership, where staff are supported to do what their instincts and commitment to patients tell them.

"We must make sure that patients know where the buck stops and who is ultimately responsible for their care.

"And above all, we must listen more to NHS staff, so we can design systems that encourage them to act safely whatever pressures they face."

Mr Hunt has said he is "very pleased" the individuals involved had now been named and that it is a sign the NHS is changing.

Concerns were first raised about the Morecambe Bay trust in 2008, but in 2010 the CQC gave it a clean bill of health.

In his speech today Mr Hunt will add: "In the wake of Mid Staffs, Morecambe Bay and many other shocking lapses in care, we must ask ourselves whether we, along with other countries, have become so numbed to the inevitability of patient harm that we accept the unacceptable."

The Health Secretary will call for the NHS to become the "world's safest health system" and a return to the days when the name of the responsible doctor and nurse were clearly written above every hospital bed.

Figures for 2011/12 show 70 patients as having received "wrong site" surgery, where the wrong part of the body or even the wrong patient was operated on, and 41 people were given incorrect implants or prostheses.

Despite such failings, health officials said the NHS tops a comparison on patient safety, beating France, Germany, Sweden, Norway and the US.

It sees nearly three million people every week and around 0.4% of those appointments ended up with incidents of harm while 0.003% ended with a person's death.

:: Watch Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt speaking live on Sky News from 9.30am on satellite channel 501, Virgin Media channel 602 and Freeview channel 82.