Opinion is divided on whether Ken Williams, the former chief executive of Bedford Hospital NHS trust, should have been forced to resign over the "bodies in the chapel" incident.

NO
Dr Richard Rawlins, consultant at Bedford Hospital and a member of the British Medical Association's consultants' committee, said Mr Williams did not deserve to lose his job.

"At the end of the day, he is not really responsible for the underfunding that has led to this situation," he told the BBC Today programme.

"Although I heard the regional chief executive say this is unacceptable, I am not entirely clear what alternative Bedford hospital - or indeed any other hospital - have when they are faced with an overflow situation.

"Funeral directors can't always take the recently departed and other arrangements have to be made."

YES
Unison official Willie White said Mr Williams had clearly not ensured that government guidance which demands that dead bodies are treated with "dignity and respect" was implemented.

"The inquiry has to ask what action did Mr Williams take in respect of that guidance?"

The trust had a history of "management problems" over the last year - at one stage a vote of no confidence in Mr Williams was passed by unions, said Mr White.

He said Mr Williams had not understood the significance of the story which he had known about last Friday when he was approached by the Sunday newspaper that broke the story. Rather than attempting to address the issue, Mr Williams had seemed intent on identifying the "mole" who leaked the story to the press, claimed Mr White.

"He should have known this was a sensitive issue, and you have to question the man's judgment."

NO
An NHS trust chief executive - who wished to remain anonymous - said that although Mr Williams should carry the blame for the "bodies in the chapel" incident, it should not follow that he should resign.

"Talking to colleagues on my trust management team on Monday the general feeling was that no one in their right mind would have let this happen.

"You could have contacted another NHS hospital to see if they would let you use their mortuary, or even a private hospital. At the very least you would have put the bodies on trolleys and covered the faces.

"I think we would have paid more attention to the fact that the NHS is front page news every other day. Clearly people should be attuned to this fact; it's something to do with antennae.

"But it won't do to keep sacking the chief executive. You cannot expect the chief executive to know everything that's going on.

POSSIBLY
Nigel Edwards, policy director of the NHS Confederation, said it was impossible to judge whether Mr Williams should have been effectively sacked until the full facts surrounding the incident were fully known.

He said it seemed odd that Mr Williams had agreed with regional officials that he should resign so soon after an inquiry expected to last several days had been launched.

"It's very difficult when you are running a medium-sized hospital like Bedford to make sure nothing will ever go wrong. The question is then who is accountable if things do go wrong.

"Being an accountable officer is not just about taking the blame and falling on your sword. If every trust chief executive was to go when something went wrong, there would be no managers left."

YES
Peter Houghton, NHS executive director for the eastern region, said: "The appalling pictures that appeared in newspapers in the past two days have brought to light totally unacceptable practice at Bedford NHS trust.

"This has caused considerable distress not only to friends and relatives of the deceased and the general public but also to staff within the hospital.

"The preliminary investigation shows that this was a failure of management in general and that no individual member of staff acted against management guidance.

"The chief executive, Ken Williams, has discussed the findings of the investigation with the chairman of the trust, Professor Andrew Blowers, and myself and felt it right to stand down. I respect that decision."

POSSIBLY
Bedford Labour MP Patrick Hall said the incident was a failure of management procedures to correct a frequently recurring problem.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I was told by senior management that this was simply a 24-hour one-off problem.

"But that is quite clearly not the case. It is something that has been going on possibly for some years.

"It's a frequently occurring incident and it is totally unacceptable. There has been a complete lack, it would seem, of proper procedures."