Five hospitals are to be investigated in the wake of the public inquiry into failings, and East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust is one.

High death rates at Stafford Hospital were one of the factors that triggered the original investigation.

Death rates are calculated by looking at the number of people that would be expected to die when taking into account the age and disease profile of the local population.

The inquiry chairman, Robert Francis QC, described events at Stafford as appalling and unnecessary, which led to hundreds of people suffering, and said they had betrayed the public’s trust in the NHS.

The inquiry found that failings went right to the top of the health service and that the Department of Health was too remote and focused on counter-productive reorganisations.

Neglect and abuse at the hospital led to hundreds of unnecessary deaths.

NHS staff should also face prosecution if they hid information about poor care and should be compelled to be open with patients about mistakes.

If there’s bad care in the system, people are entitled to know. And if people are keeping things under wraps then it’s a criminal offence.

I think the East Lancashire Hospital Trust needs to change as well. It requires a culture change from top to bottom.

Everything has to be done to make sure that level of systemic failing does not happen in any cases.

Coun Salim Mulla, Blackburn.