Gordon Brown apologizes for unacceptable health care

There can be "no excuses" for what happened to patients at Stafford Hospital, the Prime Minister said today as he apologised to families caught up in the scandal. ∴ Gordon Brown promised relatives they would be entitled to an independent review of case notes and said standards "fell far short" of what people could expect from the NHS.

A damning report form the Healthcare Commission yesterday detailed a catalogue of failings at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Stafford and Cannock Chase hospitals. ∴ Dehydrated patients were forced to drink out of flower vases, while others were left in soiled linen on filthy wards. ∴ Relatives of patients who died at Staffordshire General Hospital told how they were so worried by the standard of care they slept in chairs on the wards. Read the rest at the Daily Mail...

Caption: Deb Hazeldine, 39, places a picture of her 67-year-old mother Ellen Linstead, below, on a tribute wall at Stafford Hospital. She died after catching Clostridium difficile and MRSA at the hospital