North Warwickshire MP Dan Byles and Nuneaton MP Marcus Jones have responded to a damning report on the NHS by Professor Bruce Keogh, which lists the George Eliot Hospital as one of 14 hospitals nationwide to have been dangerously mishandled by the previous Labour Government.

The Keogh Report, published this week, found that 13,000 'excessive' patient deaths occurred at 14 hospital trusts since 2005. Coming on the back of the Mid-Staffordshire hospital scandal in which 1,200 patients died needlessly between 2005 and 2009, fingers are now being pointed at the target driven culture imposed on the NHS under the Blair and Brown governments. In the run up to 2009, at the same time as patients were dying in excessive numbers, some of these hospitals were given a 'good' rating by Labour ministers who were found to have ignored warning signs such as excessive death rates and infection rates.

As late as 2009 the Labour Health Secretary Andy Burnham - who is still the shadow Health Secretary - told the House of Commons that reports of excessive death rates should not be trusted and that "The authoritative voice on these matters is the CQC...(and) the CQC...takes a wider view". It is now clear that he was wrong, the concerns over excessive deaths were correct, and the CQC has been shown to have engaged in cover ups and suppressing evidence.

Local MP Dan Byles, who in his former military career was responsible for strategic medical planning in the Defence Medical Services and whose wife previously worked at the Eliot as a trainee doctor, has blasted the previous government over the report. Dan said:

"This damning report shows what many local people have suspected for some time. That the George Eliot Hospital was badly mismanaged for many years under the previous government - leading directly to the challenges it still faces today. We all remember the crippling £6 million deficit the Eliot faced in 2005/6, there has been no real capital investment in the hospital since the nineties, and we saw repeated attempts by Labour's Primary Care Trust (PCT) to remove services such paediatrics and maternity services. Now this new report lays bare the full extent of the last Government's failures. It proves once and for all that you can't trust Labour with the NHS - the staff and patients at the George Eliot deserve better."

Nuneaton MP Marcus Jones, whose two children were born at the George Eliot, said “Openness and transparency is vital for our NHS and it’s appalling that there was this shocking level political interference under Labour that has prevented people from knowing the truth. Patients and the staff at the George Eliot must always come before politics and whilst we may not like to hear some of the findings of the Keogh review it’s important that we learn from them.

“Labour’s only measure of success for the NHS was how much money they were putting into it. Money is important and I am pleased that the current Government is increasing NHS funding, but patient care is paramount and must always be the priority.”