The chairman of the hospital trust at the centre of a "truly shocking" killer bug scandal resigned today, the health secretary told MPs.
Alan Johnson announced James Lee's resignation this afternoon after being summoned before MPs to update them on events at the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells Trust following the tabling of an "urgent question" in the Commons by the shadow health secretary, Andrew Lansley.
Mr Lee's decision to stand down comes after Mr Johnson triggered a Department of Health review into his role leading the board of the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells Hospitals NHS trust in Kent.
The trust came in for heavy criticism last week in a damning report from the Healthcare Commission into outbreaks of the clostridium difficile infection that claimed the lives of at least 21 patients - and probably 90 - between 2004 and 2006.
The health secretary told MPs that the Healthcare Commission's report was "a truly shocking document" and said he wanted to apologise on behalf of the government and the NHS.
Answering Mr Lansley's emergency question, he said: "We must all shoulder our share of the blame. But I hope the house will recognise that the awful failures in Maidstone and Tunbridge are entirely unrepresentative of the standards of care that patients and the public rightly expect and is delivered in hospitals across the country, day after day."
Mr Johnson told the Commons that he had accepted Mr Lee's resignation as chairman of the trust.
Mr Lee came in for criticism when it emerged that the trust's former chief executive, Rose Gibb, who resigned days before the report's publication, was offered a severance package worth a reported £250,000.
Mr Johnson ordered the trust to withhold the payment, pending legal advice.
In a written statement earlier today, he announced a Department of Health review of the decision-making process surrounding her departure and Mr Lee's role in it.
The commission found that 1,176 patients were infected with C difficile during two outbreaks of the bug at the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells Hospitals NHS Trust between April 2004 and September 2006. At least 345 later died.
Its report concluded that C difficile was probably or definitely the main cause of death in 90 cases. And it stated that in 21 of those cases there was no doubt that C difficile was to blame.
Mr Lansley said the events at the trust were not an "isolated" occurrence, but a result of an obsession with NHS targets which took the focus away from patient safety.
"We have had other cases and the common link between them is that managers in the NHS have been more focused on the government's targets and the government's imperatives than they have on patient safety," said Mr Lansley.
