Responding to the inquiry into Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust by Robert Francis QC, Stuart Jeffery, the Green Party's national health spokesperson, commented:
"Blind to the needs of patients and the voices of staff, the Francis Inquiry clearly shows what happens when government gets its strategy wrong. The drive to be a Foundation Trust in the new healthcare market has led to the deaths of up to 1200 patients. Rather than delivering good quality health care, the Mid Staffs board were concentrating on finances to become a Foundation Trust - a fundamentally flawed policy that is a key part of the pseudo market in health care services.
"Let's hope that the government uses this as a wake-up call. The market has no place in health care and Foundation Trusts are unnecessary and poorly monitored. The NHS needs to return to being an organisation of health care provision not commissioned services.
"The market experiment has failed, it has wasted money and lives. It must come to an end now."
Tom Harris, the Green Party's councillor in Stafford since 2011, said:
"No community should ever be put in a situation where they stop trusting their local hospital. This has been a disaster for the whole town. The A&E unit is still shut overnight and the hospital is in millions of pounds of debt. Residents are fatigued by the endless stream of bad news about an institution every one if us wants to believe would offer us the very best care in our moment of need.
"The badly let down people of Stafford would love to believe the government's NHS reforms will improve care, but if there was ever going to be skepticism about changing the system then this is where you'll find it."
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