Can anyone think of a bigger scandal in any British public service than that revealed at Stafford Hospital? It is worse than Aberfan, or Bloody Sunday, or the King’s Cross fire, or Jimmy Savile, or even the abolition of grammar schools. Up to 1,200 people died unnecessarily, not because of one error, or a particular set of errors, but because of the way an entire hospital was run for several years.
There is plenty of evidence now emerging that comparable disasters have taken place at other hospitals, for similar reasons. Yet I searched last Saturday’s Guardian in vain for a single mention. Politicians are desperately closing the subject down. They have persuaded themselves that everyone loves the NHS, especially its nurses. In fact, hardly anyone who knows an old person going through the system is satisfied, and many are utterly disgusted.
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