Bill Cash MP: Sir David Nicholson must resign over the Mid Staffs scandal Surely, Sir David's departure, sooner rather than later, is necessary if accountability is to mean anything in public life. As the Francis report itself now says of the SHA itself, "The underlying reason for the failure of SaSSHA and the WMSHA to adequately seek out or address patient safety and quality concerns about service provision at the Trust, was a failure of the leadership to give sufficient explicit priority to the protection of patients and to ensuring that patient safety and quality standards were being observed there." The report does not however include direct criticism of Sir David's role - nor that of any of the Labour Secretaries of State, who were accountable to parliament under the duties imposed on them by the National Health legislation and who were in office at the time when so many of the traumatic events involving victims and patient care were taking place. Indeed both Alan Johnson and Andy Burnham, despite my continuous and relentless calls for an Inquiry under the Inquiries Act 2005 refused to hold one. Furthermore, successive Secretaries of State did not satisfactorily deal with my "serious" and "urgent" correspondence to them when I wrote to them personally with copies of the letters of complaint from my constituents, when under the Ministerial Guidelines issued by the Cabinet Office in 2005, these letters should have been fully and personally replied to me and then chased and followed up. Furthermore, neither Patricia Hewitt nor Alan Johnson were called to give evidence at the Francis Inquiry although so many appalling failings took place under their watch. Anna Walker, former Chief Executive of the Healthcare Commission, told the Inquiry in her evidence of Sir David Nicholson's view on the campaign group that had been raising concerns - "David said that there had been a local campaign group in existence against Mid Staffordshire for some time. Clearly patients needed to express their views but he hoped the Healthcare Commission would remain alive to something which was simply lobbying or a campaign as proposed .... When Sir David himself appeared in front of the Inquiry, insisting that "The board of Mid Staffordshire failed in its statutory duties to provide good quality care to its patients and managing within the resources provided," maintaining it was a singular case rather than a systemic problem, the Inquiry's counsel described this as a "dangerous attitude to take," based on "a naive assumption and one which places reliance on a regulatory system which has been demonstrated to have failed in a significant way." This goes right to the top and was a "systems failure" for which the successive Secretaries of State and the Chief Executive were accountable. As I stated to the Health Select Committee in June 2009 when they were looking into patient safety, ..." this is not only a local issue but has profound national implications given the role of the Chief Executive of the NHS, Sir David Nicholson, and the Chief Executive of the Care Quality Commission, Cynthia Bower, both of whose evolving careers parallel closely the course of this tragedy from about 2005." To his credit, David Cameron eventually responded to my call for an Inquiry under the Inquiries Act 2005 on Stafford Hospital when he was the then Leader of the Opposition and he ordered it as Prime Minister. However, the former Labour Secretaries of State point blank refused and have now come out as a team supporting Sir David Nicholson, although many MPs and virtually every newspaper are calling for his resignation. There is grave concern to know whether there is some establishment deal going on. In the last two weeks, I have called three times for an urgent debate on the Francis report on the floor of the House in Government time. Given the trauma for the victims and patients and the implications for the National Health Service as a whole, it is a matter of gravest concern why such a debate has not yet taken place. The Francis report and the role of Sir David Nicholson is of direct relevance to every constituent, every hospital and the National Health Service as a whole. The issues of responsibility in respect of both former Secretaries of State and Sir David Nicholson himself will be in the spotlight not least of which because he is the Chief Executive of the NHS Commissioning Board, which takes on its full statutory duties on April 1st, meanwhile he remains in his role as NHS Chief Executive. He has presided over the NHS since 2006 whilst the tragedies at Mid Staffordshire were unfolding and while so many other tragedies and difficulties have occurred in the health service as a whole.