CQC bosses behind baby deaths ‘cover-up’ revealed

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) had redacted the senior managers’ names from a damning report which detailed the alleged cover-up of an internal review highlighting a failure of inspections of Morecambe Bay NHS Trust.

The report described how “Mr G”, who we now know was Jill Finney (above right), uttered the ominous words “read my lips” when telling the author of the report to get rid of it.

Current CQC media manager Anna Jefferson was quoted in the report as saying “are you kidding me? This can never be in a public domain, nor subject to FoI (Freedom of Information request)”.

Louise Dineley, the author of the damning internal report, told independent investigators that Ms Finney had ordered the deletion of the report and that Ms Bower and Ms Jefferson had “verbally agreed”.

Cynthia Bower, former chief executive of the CQC, and her deputy, Ms Finney, have since left the CQC, but Ms Jefferson is still in post The health regulator had come under increasing pressure to release the names after pressure from ministers including Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, and the names were eventually released on Thursday afternoon.

Mr Hunt said the decision to publish the names was “a sign that the NHS is changing”. “It’s to the credit of the new management of the CQC that they got an independent report and did not run away from this problem,” he added.

The four officials sat around the table at a key private CQC meeting in March 2012 when the decision was allegedly taken to cover-up evidence of the failures at Morecambe Bay NHS Trust – and the failures of the CQC’s initial inspection to pick up on what was going wrong.

Cynthia Bower, 57, became CQC chief executive in 2008 but left the organisation last year after the publication of a report, critical of the CQC, with a pension pot of over £1.3m. In a statement, she said she regretted any regulation failings, but denied ordering that the critical report be deleted.

“I gave no instruction to delete any such report; I have no note or recollection of such instruction being given. Had I heard any such instruction, I would have countermanded it. “The report was, in fact, never deleted and indeed a copy was provided to Grant Thornton,” she said in a statement. Ms Finney was behind the CQC’s response to the Francis report into the Mid Staffs scandal.

She was on a salary of up to £145,000 after being appointed Ms Bower’s deputy and director of communications and marketing in 2009, but left the CQC in February and now works for the internet company Nominet. According to her LinkedIn profile, Ms Jefferson has been at the CQC since February 2003.

She also denied the allegations, and said the quote attributed to her was “false, uncorroborated and has since been retracted, I am appalled that it appears in the report”. Baby deaths Police are still investigating the death of nine-day-old baby Joshua Titcombe, who died in 2008 at Furness General Hospital, which was run by University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Trust.

On Thursday, officers said they would widen the investigation to cover other deaths, following the critical report. James Titcombe, Joshua’s father, tweeted that he felt “disgust” about Ms Bower’s involvement in the cover-up (see below). More than 30 families are involved in legal action against the Cumbrian hospital, and while police have not confirmed numbers, up to 16 babies and two mothers are feared to have died because of poor care between 2001 and 2012.

Source Channel 4 News