The scandal that shook the NHS
The Story
The Times
3.9 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 6 February 2023
⏱️ 35 minutes
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Summary
Ten years ago today, a public inquiry concluded that patients were subject to shocking levels of neglect at Stafford Hospital, putting it among the worst care scandals in NHS history. A young local reporter, Shaun Lintern – now The Sunday Times' health editor – helped expose the scandal. With the NHS again under huge pressure, can we be sure the same failings won't happen again? Shaun speaks to the barrister who chaired the inquiry.
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Guest: Shaun Lintern, Health Editor, The Sunday Times.
Host: Manveen Rana.
Clips: BBC, Labour Party, Mid Staffs Inquiry.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | 10 years ago today, I go morning. After hearing from over 250 witnesses and reviewing |
| 0:15.5 | over a million pages of evidence, the barrister, Robert Francis sat behind a desk in a hall |
| 0:22.5 | in Westminster, addressing a press conference. This is a story of appalling and unnecessary |
| 0:30.6 | suffering of hundreds of people. They were failed by a system which ignored the warning |
| 0:36.7 | signs and put corporate self-interest and cost control ahead of patients and their safety. |
| 0:46.7 | Robert Francis had been leading the inquiry into Stafford Hospital, run by Mid Staffordshire |
| 0:52.9 | NHS Trust. It was one of the worst NHS scandals in history, and we were told it would never |
| 1:00.9 | be allowed to happen again. But a decade on, so Robert is worried the health service |
| 1:08.8 | is falling apart. The system is collapsing around our areas. There's this sort of sense |
| 1:15.8 | that people are dying out there. I think about it virtually all the time. What can be done? |
| 1:27.3 | The founder of the NHS, Nye Beavan, said if a bedpan was dropped in a hospital corridor |
| 1:33.7 | in his South Wales constituency, the reverberations should echo around Whitehall. But Mid Staffs |
| 1:42.4 | took years to come to light. With the NHS under huge pressure, can we be sure the same |
| 1:49.8 | thing couldn't happen again? |
| 1:59.8 | Before listening to stories of our times from the Times and the Sunday Times, I'm Manvin |
| 2:05.3 | Rarner. Today, the scandal that shook the NHS. |
| 2:25.1 | I'm Sean Linton, health editor at the Sunday Times. |
| 2:30.9 | Our story starts six years before that press conference in Westminster. It begins in 2007 |
| 2:39.5 | at the Staffordshire offices of the Regional Newspaper, the Express and Star. |
| 2:45.0 | I have very fond memories of being a young reporter on the Express and Star. I was doing |
| 2:51.5 | all the traditional jobs of a young journalist, the church fates and the dog shows and the |
| 2:57.3 | crown court trials and everything in between really. That's where, in all honesty, my career |
... |
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