With its failings exposed, the NHS can recover If you want to fix a problem, you first have to find out the nature of the problem. Transparency is absolutely key to identifying the challenges facing the NHS - a point proven by our report on the thousands of needless deaths that have occurred on hospital wards since 2005. The statistics are damning. Up to 13,000 patients may have died unnecessarily in a context of institutional failure, poor care standards and a worrying desire to cover up rather than address mistakes. Problems included neglect, infections and so-called "never events," such as operations on the wrong part of the body, or even leaving surgical instruments inside the patient. The worst offender was the Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which saw 1,600 more deaths than might have been expected in seven years - making its mortality rate 20 per cent higher than at the average hospital during that period. What makes these figures even more alarming is how aware staff, managers and politicians actually were of the crisis. Our investigation reveals that the 14 worst hospitals in England were forced to pay out an extraordinary £234 million in settlements for negligence in the past three years. Tameside Hospital - otherwise known as "Shameside" by some locals - forked out £30 million alone. The ultimate test of the quality of care is whether or not nurses and doctors would be prepared to allow their own relatives to be treated in the hospitals where they work. At Basildon and Thurrock just 51 per cent said they would be happy about that prospect; at North Cumbria University Hospitals trust it was only 35 per cent. Labour has to take a lot of blame. The party, while in government, sold itself as the loyal guardian of the NHS, which often meant putting the reputation of the institution above the needs of patients. The Sunday Telegraph recently revealed how, in 2009, Andy Burnham, Labour's health secretary, and Katie Myler, his special adviser, privately complained about a damning report produced by the Care Quality Commission into Basildon Hospital. Labour's political approach to the NHS has always been to treat it like a national treasure whose only problem is underfunding. The service's "sacred" status has thus made it, unhealthily, almost beyond criticism. Only by revealing the appalling scale of the failings of some hospitals can the need for change now be made apparent. The good news is that this Government understands the importance of transparency. Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, has made a compelling case for going public with data on doctor, surgeon and hospital performance. This approach has faced opposition from some medical professionals, and the data released thus far on surgery give a hint as to why a minority of practitioners might be resistant. Figures relating to vascular surgery, for example, show that some doctors have death rates 14 times the national average. The NHS must embrace transparency because it is right for patients to know all the facts about their treatment, and because it has been shown to improve care. Nine years ago, Prof Sir Bruce Keogh - now medical director of NHS England - persuaded 240 of his fellow NHS heart surgeons to publish data about clinical outcomes. The result has been a dramatic improvement in survival rates; in some procedures it is calculated that more than a third of people are now alive when once they might have died. Today, the heart surgery mortality rate is half that of Germany's and a fifth of Portugal's. Likewise, the publication of death rates helped to expose the horrendous Staffordshire hospital scandal, where up to 1,200 patients died needlessly. The new data that we report today expand our understanding of where failure is taking place. Talking openly and honestly about what can and does go wrong is the best way to make our health service better. We need to treat patients like adults, not sell them a fantasy image of the NHS as a near-godly institution run by angels.