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F149

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Mid Staffs Inquiry · Report of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry · Issued 6 February 2013

Government responseDepartment of Health and Social Care: Accepted (Nov 2013)

DeliveryDHSC and NHS England say in progress (Feb 2026)Department of Health and Social Care says in progress (Feb 2015)

Recommendation, verbatim from the inquiry

●Inquiry recommendation

Scrutiny committees should be provided with appropriate support to enable them to carry out their scrutiny role, including easily accessible guidance and benchmarks.

Mid Staffs Inquiry, Report of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry · 6 Feb 2013 Source PDF →

Published evidence summary

AI-generated evidence summary

In commentary of September 2024 published in February 2026, the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England stated: "Please see response to recommendation 147." (DHSC and NHS England, Feb 2026) In that February 2026 review, the Thirlwall Inquiry legal team noted that the government had reported issuing health scrutiny guidance in June 2014 alongside data transparency programmes (The Thirlwall Inquiry legal team, Feb 2026). The department had earlier reported in February 2015 that it jointly commissioned a support programme for local authorities for 2014/15 (Department of Health, Feb 2015).

AI-generated summary of the record on this page, checked by a second model and automatic checks, 26 Sep 2026.

Report-level response context

Government responded via "Hard Truths: The Journey to Putting Patients First" (2014), a single document covering all 290 recommendations with a blanket acceptance. Individual recommendation responses were not broken out.

Government response

●Department of Health and Social Care · Accepted · 19 Nov 2013

Speaker not recorded. Source: Department of Health, Hard Truths: the Journey to Putting Patients First, volume 2 (Cm 8777-II), November 2013

Accepted.
The Department of Health has worked with partners to develop guidance that will support local authorities to carry out effective scrutiny of the commissioning and delivery of local services, helping to ensure they are effective and safe.
The guidance will help Local Authorities (along with local partners including NHS commissioners and providers, Health and Wellbeing Boards and Healthwatch) to understand the new powers and duties provided by the Local Authorities (Public Health, Health and Wellbeing Boards and Health Scrutiny) Regulations 2013.
The Department is also delivering a range of programmes to increase the availability and transparency of data for local authorities, to support local democratic accountability including scrutiny processes.
The guidance is due to be published in November 2013.

Response document: Hard Truths: The Journey to Putting Patients First. Volume Two of the Government Response to the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry: Response to the Inquiry's Recommendations

Site note: This is volume two of "Hard Truths: The Journey to Putting Patients First" (Cm 8777-II), the government's response to the Inquiry's 290 recommendations, published by the Department of Health on GOV.UK on 19 November 2013 and dated to that day here. The PDF the row links to is the accessible edition, whose title page reads "January 2014". The Department of Health has been the Department of Health and Social Care since January 2018. The volume says it includes accounts from each of the national organisations the recommendations name, but it does not mark which passage each organisation wrote, so every row is filed under the Department that published it.

Delivery

●DHSC and NHS England say in progress · 27 Feb 2026

Please see response to recommendation 147.

From: The Thirlwall Inquiry: Review of Implementation of Recommendations from Previous Inquiries into Healthcare Issues (version dated April 2025)

Site note: DHSC and NHS England's own account of progress, supplied to the Thirlwall Inquiry in September 2024 and printed in the Inquiry legal team's Review of Implementation of Recommendations from Previous Inquiries into Healthcare Issues (version dated April 2025, published 27 February 2026). It is not a finding of the Inquiry. Their reviewed extent of implementation reads “Implemented - Ongoing”. Table row: section 18.2 No. 149, PDF page 495.

●Department of Health and Social Care says in progress · 11 Feb 2015

In June 2014, the Department issued guidance to local authorities on how to scrutinise local health systems. The guidance supports local government, the NHS and other local partners to understand and develop their roles in relation to health scrutiny, and ensure that it adds value for local communities. The publication of the guidance was put back in order to ensure consistency with related policy around local consultation on proposals for service reconfiguration, and to allow additional engagement with local authorities and other system partners.

The Department of Health, NHS England and Public Health England have jointly commissioned a programme of support for 2014/15 for local authorities in exercising their health scrutiny powers.

From: Culture Change in the NHS supporting Annex (annex to Culture change in the NHS: applying the lessons of the Francis Inquiries)

Site note: This is the supporting annex published on 11 February 2015 with "Culture change in the NHS: applying the lessons of the Francis Inquiries" (Cm 9009), attached to the GOV.UK page as "Culture change in the NHS supporting annex". The annex has no title page; that title is GOV.UK's and the PDF's own. Its table has four columns (No., Recommendation, Hard Truths Government response, Progress update), and the row carries the Progress update cell. No column says which organisation wrote an update, so the row is filed under the Department of Health (now the Department of Health and Social Care), which published it.

Site note: The Inquiry addressed this recommendation to local authorities, not to the Department of Health. The annex gives this update in the Department's publication and does not say who wrote it, so the row is the Department's report of the progress made on it.

What other bodies have found

In their own words. These do not change the delivery statement above.

●Thirlwall Inquiry legal team · 27 Feb 2026

This recommendation was accepted by the Government.

In the January 2014 Hard Truths report, the Department of Health said it was working with partners to develop this guidance.

In the February 2015 Culture Change report, the Government said that guidance had been issued to local authorities on how to scrutinise local health systems in June 2014.

The Government also ais that the Department of Health was delivering programmes to increase the availability and transparency of data for local authorities.

From: The Thirlwall Inquiry: Review of Implementation of Recommendations from Previous Inquiries into Healthcare Issues (version dated April 2025)

Site note: The Thirlwall Inquiry legal team's own notes on implementation, from its Review of Implementation of Recommendations from Previous Inquiries into Healthcare Issues (version dated April 2025, published 27 February 2026). The review does not colour its Extent of Implementation cell for this recommendation green; it leaves the cell uncoloured where a recommendation was rejected, where evidence of implementation was insufficient, or where steps had been taken but implementation was not yet complete. Table row: section 18.2 No. 149, PDF page 495.

Earlier findings (1)

●Thirlwall Inquiry legal team · 15 May 2024

This recommendation was accepted by the Government.

In the January 2014 Hard Truths report, the Department of Health said it was working with partners to develop this guidance.

In the February 2015 Culture Change report, the Government said that guidance had been issued to local authorities on how to scrutinise local health systems in June 2014. The Government also dais that the Department of Health was delivering programmes to increase the availability and transparency of data for local authorities.

From: The Thirlwall Inquiry: Review of Implementation of Recommendations from Previous Inquiries into Healthcare Issues (version of 15 May 2024)

Site note: The Thirlwall Inquiry legal team's own notes on implementation, from its Review of Implementation of Recommendations from Previous Inquiries into Healthcare Issues (version of 15 May 2024). The review does not colour its Extent of Implementation cell for this recommendation green; it leaves the cell uncoloured where a recommendation was rejected, where evidence of implementation was insufficient, or where steps had been taken but implementation was not yet complete. Table row: section 16.2 No. 149, PDF page 462.

How this page is built

The recommendation and the government responses are verbatim from primary documents. Delivery statements and other bodies' findings are shown in their own words, each with its source. The summary is written by this site and labelled as such. The Index does not paraphrase sources or characterise intent; it records what has been published.