Patient welfare at National Health Service (NHS) hospitals needs to be a top priority after recent patient neglect scandals

The recent scandal of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust has thrust the issue of NHS patient safety firmly back on the agenda.

The report, chaired by Robert Francis QC, painted a terrible picture of patients left dying while lying in their own urine and faeces.  The report found little compassion amongst staff and appalling hygiene standards.

Francis said in his report: “Many people who went into Stafford Hospital expecting to be well looked after instead suffered horrific experiences that will haunt them and their loved ones for the rest of their lives.”

It was merely the latest in a long line of reports into complaints about NHS patient safety and within the health service in general.

In November 2009 the Dr Foster consultancy firm brought out its findings which identified 12 NHS hospitals as ‘significantly underperforming’.

It also named 27 trusts with unusually high death rates. The situation was more worrying in that eight of the 12 trusts named by Dr Foster were seen by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) as rating good or excellent.

This clearly suggested problems at the heart of the NHS in terms of identifying patient safety in the first place and has led to renewed debate over whether those in charge of the NHS are too busy trying to fulfil government imposed targets than ensuring that the patients in their care are safe and well treated.