Care failings are betrayal of NHS values, says Jeremy Hunt Jeremy Hunt says patients must be treated not as numbers but as human beings. Photograph: Matthew Lloyd/Getty Images A series of failings to show basic human compassion at hospitals and care homes in recent years represent "perhaps the most shocking betrayal of NHS founding values in its history," the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has said. Lambasting what he called examples of appalling care at many NHS institutions, Hunt said such scandals were "simply not worthy of a civilised country." He said: "Patients must never be treated as numbers but as human beings, indeed human beings at their frailest and most vulnerable. A culture of targets and performance management defined the NHS under Labour - with the unintended and tragic consequence that organisations cared more about meeting top-down targets than focusing on the needs of patients. Hunt's broadside in the Sunday Telegraph came as he awaited the report of a public inquiry into the scandal at Stafford hospital, part of Mid-Staffordshire NHS trust, where between 400 and 1,200 patients are thought to have died as a result of poor care over four years. The health secretary is expected to come under severe pressure to strengthen the "duty of candour" already planned for introduction in all new NHS commissioning contracts this April, which will oblige healthcare providers to be more open about problems. The charity Action Against Medical Accidents has said this does not go far enough and a statutory obligation should be placed on health bodies to tell patients or families if safety has been compromised, to apologise for their mistakes and to learn from them. It says penalties should include bans on offering NHS services, and fines. Hunt hinted strongly that NHS managers would have to pay more dearly for failings and could face the sack. He said: "We will listen carefully to what the inquiry says when it reports. We also need ministers and regulators to speak out loudly - something I have endeavoured to do, as has the new management at the Care Quality Commission [the NHS inspectorate]. He said there should be more accountability among senior managers at NHS institutions. It is tough and often thankless being an NHS manager; despite which most do an excellent job. But the best ones know that no box to be ticked, no target to be met, no initiative to comply with is worth a single failure in care. Just as a manager wouldn't expect to keep their job if they lost control of their finances, nor should they expect to keep it if they lose control of the care in their organisation either. And that means above all happy and motivated staff - something that is always a priority in successful NHS organisations or indeed any other organisation as well. The government already plans to make every NHS hospital ask in-patients whether they would recommend the care they received to a friend or a close member of their family, and to publish the results. Hunt said the NHS "must ensure that training for nurses and care assistants helps them cope with busier wards - and that the compassion that led them into the profession does not get ground out of them." The health secretary name-checked Alexandra hospital in Redditch, Worcestershire, where a patient who was there for two months died of starvation, among the examples of appalling care. Other institutions identified were James Paget university hospital in Gorleston, Norfolk, which was threatened with prosecution over lack of nutrition and hydration of elderly patients; East Surrey hospital, where the bullying of a dying man with Parkinson's disease in December 2010 was secretly filmed; University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay trust, which has been much criticised for poor maternity services at Furness general hospital; and Queen's hospital, Romford, where maternity services were said to be putting patients at risk. Staff there also verbally abused patients and colleagues, according to the Care Quality Commission. Last week, the Guardian reported on the health service ombudsman's criticism of managers at Leighton hospital, Crewe, for misleading the parents of a stillborn baby boy about failures in its maternity care.