Stafford Hospital director feared she was 'not right' for job

?The former medical director at Stafford Hospital during the time hundreds of patients died as a result of poor care has admitted she worried she was not the right person for the job.

Dr Valerie Suarez took up the crucial post in 2006 on a part-time basis alongside her normal role as a pathologist.

She told the public inquiry into the hospital's failings yesterday she had no formal training for the job and said her priority remained trying to be a clinician.

Dr Suarez, who stepped down in 2009, said she spent a couple of hours a month on wards at the hospital and did not see the kind of problems highlighted by the Healthcare Commission investigation.

Asked by counsel to the inquiry Ben Fitzgerald whether she worried she might not be the right person for the job she agreed, adding: "It was hard to do both jobs. Having tried it I would say it's not possible to successfully do both. I felt as if I was being torn in two directions but I did put in 100 per cent."

She told Mr Fitzgerald that historically finance dominated the agenda at the hospital.

Dr Suarez said that although there were concerns about the reduction in staffing levels it was not part of her job. She said: "With all the other things I was contending with, although it was an issue for the trust, it wasn't one for me in my role particularly.

"I appreciated it was a problem but I didn't have the skills to appreciate how much of a problem or what the solution would be."

Dr Suarez, who still works as a consultant pathologist at the hospital, apologised for poor care at the hospital saying: "It was difficult to do the job part-time. I think in a small trust it is difficult to have the amount of support that's available in a large trust, and I think it's also fair to say that we should have been more outward looking than we were."

She said the trust should have sought more support adding: "In terms of the lack of care that some patients had, well, clearly, that shouldn't have happened and I genuinely apologise for that."