This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/feb/28/nhs-david-nicholson-mid-staffs

The article has changed 5 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 0 Version 1
NHS commissioning board backs David Nicholson despite Mid Staffs scandal NHS commissioning board backs David Nicholson despite Mid Staffs scandal
(about 2 hours later)
The body that will take over the day-to-day running of the NHS in England from April has backed David Nicholson, currently chief executive of both the NHS and the new NHS commissioning board, in the face of calls for his resignation following the Mid Staffordshire hospital scandal. The body that will take over the day-to-day running of the NHS in England from April has backed Sir David Nicholson, currently chief executive of both the NHS and the new NHS commissioning board, in the face of calls for his resignation following the Mid Staffordshire hospital scandal.
Malcolm Grant, who chairs the commissioning board, said he had been "deeply worried" by the speculation over Nicholson's future since the report of the 31-month public inquiry into the Mid Staffordshire NHS foundation trust earlier this month exposed failings across the health service in an excoriating indictment of its attitudes and practices. It made 290 recommendations.Malcolm Grant, who chairs the commissioning board, said he had been "deeply worried" by the speculation over Nicholson's future since the report of the 31-month public inquiry into the Mid Staffordshire NHS foundation trust earlier this month exposed failings across the health service in an excoriating indictment of its attitudes and practices. It made 290 recommendations.
Grant said the board's "clear view" was that Nicholson was fundamental to the success of the reorganisation that will see existing primary care trusts replaced by 221 clinical commissioning groups around the country. The board wanted "very strongly" for Nicholson to remain in charge. Grant said he had discussed the issue with the board's directors before the meeting at which he expressed their decision. Between 400 and 1200 patients are estimated to have died as a result of poor standards at Stafford hospital.
Campaigners walked out of the board meeting, held in public in Manchester, with one crying out "shameful". The board's backing for Nicholson, which follows support from David Cameron, came as pressure mounts on Nicholson to be held accountable for serious failings at the trust between 2005 and 2009. He was chief executive of the regional health body for part of the period in which patients were neglected and poorly treated. He has been chief executive of the NHS since September 2006. Grant said Nicholson was fundamental to the success of the reorganisation, which will see existing primary care trusts replaced by 221 clinical commissioning groups around the country.
Sixteen MPs, 12 of them Conservatives, have so far called for Nicholson's resignation given his role as chief executive of the West Midlands strategic health authority during the time covered by the inquiry. They have signed a Commons early day motion whose prime sponsor is Charlotte Leslie, the Tory MP for Bristol North West. "Over the recent weeks I have reflected on several occasions with David about what has been said in the press," he said in a statement.
Julie Bailey, one of the founders of Cure the NHS, whose mother died at Stafford hospital, was one of about a dozen protesters who stood silently outside the board's office in Manchester where its directors were meeting. She said: "How can we start to cure the NHS when the person who was in charge of those failings is now expected to be in charge of putting it right?" "I have discussed it personally with each of the [executive] directors of the commissioning board and I have discussed it collectively with the non-executive directors of the board.
Nicholson at present splits his responsibilities between the NHS and the commissioning board but will move there full time at the end of next month. "We have come to a clear view that David Nicholson is the chief executive of the board, he is the person who we wish very strongly to lead a strong executive team on the board.
"He is the person whose command of the detail of the NHS, and his commitment and his passion to its future, we believe to be fundamental to the success of the board."
The board's backing for Nicholson, which follows support from David Cameron, came as pressure mounted on Nicholson to be held accountable for serious failings at the trust between 2005 and 2009. He was chief executive of the regional health body for part of the period in which patients were neglected and poorly treated. He has been chief executive of the NHS since September 2006.
Campaigners walked out of the board meeting, held in public in Manchester. Robin Bastin, of the campaign group Cure the NHS, which includes relatives of patients, said it was "outrageous" for Nicholson to go on running the health service, adding: "He was in charge of the strategic health authority when all this was going on. I'm disgusted." Sixteen MPs, 12 of them Conservatives, have so far called for Nicholson's resignation given his role. They have signed a Commons early day motion whose prime sponsor is Charlotte Leslie, the Tory MP for Bristol North West.
Nicholson at present splits his responsibilities between the NHS and the commissioning board but will move to the latter full time at the end of next month.
The commissioning board had earlier been given a briefing by Robert Francis QC, who led the public inquiry. Repeating his message that the NHS needed a culture of "openness, transparency and candour", he called for "a balanced approach of acknowledging difficulties and deficiencies as well as, quite properly, claiming the credit for things that are going right".
He added that there needed to be "rigorous rules" to ensure staff were honest about the service, "so that you are not being fooled by providers and they are telling you the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, as we like to say in court".
"You, and commissioners in general, should acknowledge your own individual responsibilities for promoting the necessary culture change of individual and collective responsibility," he said.
Greater openness over safety would help commissioners change or reconfigure services where necessary, Francis suggested. Nicholson told the meeting there was "a real enemy of complacency" within the NHS, "that somehow everything will be all right".
He said: "What you need to do is absorb the criticisms and understand it in a deep way and do something about it.
"We need to put the entire weight of the NHS, both the patients and the people working in it, to shift that culture in the right way."
He said he was "very passionate" about improving services to patients and "very ambitious" about the NHS.
Meanwhile health officials are consulting on whether or not to put the Mid Staffordshire trust into administration in order to "safeguard services" for local patients.Meanwhile health officials are consulting on whether or not to put the Mid Staffordshire trust into administration in order to "safeguard services" for local patients.
If Monitor, the regulator for foundation trusts, goes ahead with the move, Mid Staffs will be the first foundation trust in the country to be put under the charge of special administrators.If Monitor, the regulator for foundation trusts, goes ahead with the move, Mid Staffs will be the first foundation trust in the country to be put under the charge of special administrators.