A report released last week revealed that as many as 13,000 patients may have died unnecessarily in NHS hospitals between 2005 and 2012. The investigation discovered appalling standards of care, with patients being left without food and water, forced to lie in soiled beds, and left in ambulances because there were no beds available. The report further accused hospital staff of being more focused on meeting government-imposed targets than on patient care. To make matters worse, standards were allowed to slip so dramatically because the watchdog tasked with monitoring the performance of NHS hospitals — the Care Quality Commission — covered up incidents of its employees failing to spot problems or to investigate complaints; they even used gagging orders to silence potential whistleblowers. Ministers of the last Labour government, which set up the CQC, have also been accused of ignoring warnings about high death rates and other problems. In a separate development, a controversial “end of life” care program for elderly and terminally ill patients known as the Liverpool Care Pathway is to be phased out, after it emerged that hospitals were abusing the systemto hasten the death of patients by withdrawing food and drink.
