Doctors, nurses and managers to face five years in jail if they neglect patients

Doctors, nurses and NHS managers will face up to five years in jail if they are found to have wilfully neglected or mistreated patients under a new law aimed at stopping a repeat of the Mid Staffordshire hospital scandal.

The threat of criminal sanctions for NHS staff will be announced next week by Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, following a series of reviews into patient safety.

In a move likely to alarm medical groups, the government will create a new offence of "wilful neglect or mistreatment" for hospital workers whose standards of care have fallen short in the most extreme cases.

Hunt, who has been very critical of the NHS, is expected to set out a range of measures to improve standards of care on Tuesday, which could include moves to boost transparency and the complaints processes.

However, he is likely to come under most pressure from Labour to say how the coalition will increase staffing, amid concerns about falling nursing levels and an impending crisis in A&E this winter.

Speaking from Sri Lanka at the Commonwealth summit, David Cameron said the new law was not about punishing those who have made mistakes but "specific cases where a patient has been neglected or ill-treated".

The new law was recommended earlier this summer by Professor Don Berwick, a former adviser to Barack Obama. His report also stressed that there are very few examples of wilful neglect in the NHS and called for an end to the "blame game" towards medical staff.

Medical defence organisations have said there are already enough sanctions to use against staff.

Berwick recommended new criminal penalties for "leaders who have acted wilfully, recklessly, or with a 'couldn't care less' attitude and whose behaviour causes avoidable death or serious harm".

The academic was commissioned to look into patient safety after the Francis inquiry into the Mid Staffordshire NHS scandal, where patients were left thirsty and in dirty conditions causing "appalling and unnecessary suffering of hundreds of people".

In that report, Robert Francis suggested wilfully causing death or harm to a patient should be a criminal offence but made it clear no one at Mid Staffordshire should be scapegoated. Since then, the Health and Safety Executive has successfully prosecuted the trust over safety breaches relating to the death of 66-year-old Gillian Astbury, a diabetic patient who was not given insulin.

The trust pleaded guilty last month to failing to ensure the safety of Astbury, who lapsed into a fatal coma while being treated at Stafford hospital in April 2007.

It is understood exact details of the new sanctions are yet to be worked out and will be put out to consultation. However, they are expected to be similar to those under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 in relation to wilful neglect or ill-treatment of adults who lack capacity, which carries a fine, or imprisonment for a maximum of five years.

Downing Street sources said prosecutions under the current laws to protect vulnerable groups were rare but ministers believe the new crime will act as a deterrent to mistreatment.

Lawyers have said that the 2005 act had seen prosecutions of individuals working on the front line but said senior managers and organisations had been largely untouched by the law.

A number of social care organisations had been prosecuted, said lawyers, but most had been acquitted.

Cameron, who also warned that there is growing evidence climate change is causing more extreme weather disasters like the Philippines typhoon, said: "The NHS is full of brilliant doctors, nurses and other health workers who dedicate their lives to caring for our loved ones but Mid Staffordshire hospital showed that sometimes the standard of care is not good enough.

"That is why we have taken a number of different steps that will improve patient care and improve how we spot bad practice. Never again will we allow sub-standard care, cruelty or neglect to go unnoticed and unpunished.

"This is not about a hospital worker who makes a mistake, but specific cases where a patient has been neglected or ill-treated. This offence will make clear that neglect is unacceptable and those who do so will feel the full force of the law."

Shortly after Berwick's report, Dr Mark Porter, chair of council at the British Medical Association, told a fringe event at the Lib Dem party conference in September that he was worried about criminalising medics.

"That is no way to encourage openness, as was so powerfully shown by Professor Berwick in his recent report, with reference to the rich body of research into organisational psychology," he said.

"There is an answer to this, and that is to act against the bully, not the bullied. It is to build on the professional duty to speak out by placing a duty on healthcare organisations to listen. Active listening, as often happens, not hands over the ears, as sometimes, appallingly, happens."

There has also been unease about the possibility of criminal sanctions from Dr Christine Tomkins of the Medical Defence Union, who has said there were already sufficient penalties against doctors.

"Doctors who are accused of wilfully neglecting patients can already be reported to the General Medical Council and face having their licence revoked if found guilty," she said after the Berwick review.

"We believe this is adequate for the protection of the public and doubt the additional threat of potential police investigation is necessary or likely to lead to successful prosecutions. If the government decides to take this forward, we will need to look carefully at what it proposes."

The criminal offence comes after Hunt negotiated a new contract with GPs forcing them to reveal their pay and making sure everyone over 75 has a specific family doctor who knows their medical history.

Speaking from Sri Lanka, Cameron said he had no problem with GPs earning more than him but wanted their salaries to be more transparent. "Some GPs are very well paid. Some of them are running very large practices, are working extremely hard. You should be able to get to the top of your profession and I don't believe in artificial limits in these things," he said.

• This article was amended on 18 November 2013. An earlier version said police had prosecuted Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust over the death of Gillian Astbury. The criminal prosecution was brought by the Health and Safety Executive.