Staff who blew the whistle on poor standards of hospital care have been praised by the government's health standards regulator for their courage in attempting to alert the authorities to care abuses.

Peter Homa, chief executive of the Commission for Health Improvement (CHI), criticised North Lakeland NHS trust in Cumbria for not acting after abuses were reported by staff in 1996, and blamed that failure for further alleged mistreatment of patients in 1998.

Mr Homa today praised the "courage" of whistle-blowers who battled to expose mistreatment of elderly mentally ill patients at North Lakeland.

The trust was slammed in a CHI report for failing to prevent abuses which included tying patients to their commodes, and feeding patients while they were on the toilet. Homa described the management's failure to prevent abuses on elderly mental health wards at North Lakeland NHS trust as a "very sad, depressing situation". He said the trust had become too obsessed with meeting its financial targets.

Dr Linda Patterson, CHI medical director, said: "The culture within the trust was that all staff were not absolutely informed of current clinical practice and were accepting of the fact that abuse had occurred. We found that very disturbing, but we think it's a sign of the corporate culture. We had a team who were experienced in the field and they were appalled, as were we."

A nurse who exposed failings at Oxford Heart Centre suffered "extensive bullying and harrassment" after raising the alarm to managers in 1998, it emerged today. Christine Hancock, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said it was "shameful" that it had taken more than two years to investigate concerns raised by Colette O'Keefe, a senior nurse at the centre. "She has had to face extensive bullying and harrassment because she had the courage to speak out," said Hancock.

Oxford Heart Centre was criticised by an NHS Executive report after an inquiry found evidence of serious management failings, a failure to monitor inexperienced staff, and a culture of secrecy and complacency.