Wrong man was made boss, Stafford Hospital probe told

Martin Yeates was the wrong man for the job of chief executive at Stafford Hospital, according to the NHS boss who sat on the panel that gave him the job.

Sir David Nicholson, the chief executive of the NHS, was on the interviewing panel which offered Mr Yeates the job in 2005.

He revealed he had a mentoring relationship with Mr Yeates after he took on his job, but that the former Stafford boss never called him.

The inquiry was also told Mr Yeates had an informal mentoring relationship with a chief executive of a hospital 20 miles away, which it is believed was David Loughton, at Wolverhampton's New Cross Hospital.

Mr Yeates, who resigned from the hospital in May, 2009, never told Sir David Nicholson about safety concerns at the hospital or alerts about death rates.

At a meeting with Mr Yeates and chairman Toni Brisby in 2005, Sir David told the inquiry a cut in nurses at the hospital to save £10 million was never discussed.

Sir David told the inquiry Mr Yeates "was the wrong appointment" but he added at that time he "was above the line" for the job and had lots of operational experience.

Counsel to the inquiry Tom Kark QC asked him if he "was ultimately responsible to Parliament" for Martin Yeates' actions. Sir David answered that he was accountable for Mr Yeates' "use of resources."

Sir David admitted mistakes were made that allowed problems at Stafford Hospital to go undetected.

He also revealed how he was kept in the dark on the scale of the disaster at Stafford Hospital until as late as February 2009 – just a month before the damning Healthcare Commission report was published.

The inquiry heard Sir David did not see a letter from the Healthcare Commission raising serious concerns about the safety of Stafford Hospital's A&E department, sent in May 2008. Sir David admitted yesterday he should have seen it, and something should have been done.

He said it was passed to the health authority but inquiry chairman Robert Francis QC told him: "Passing a letter from one desk to another is not action."

Counsel to the inquiry Tom Kark QC said there was a "litany of dreadful patient complaints" after the letter was sent, asking Sir David if the NHS should have intervened sooner.

Sir David answered saying the HCC never asked the Government to act and said it was difficult to do anything before the report was made public.

Sir David was head of the NHS in Staffordshire and the West Midlands in 2005 and then chief executive of the NHS from September 2006.