by Felicity Collier

OUR NHS is “standing on a burning platform,” hospital inspectors warned yesterday after finding that four in five trusts aren’t safe for patients.

Safety remains the “biggest concern” for Care Quality Commission (CQC) chiefs.

Following the first round of inspections of all English hospitals, the CQC found that nurses were overstretched with shortages on maternity wards leaving women in labour without enough one-to-one support. There is also a “growing pressure” on junior doctors responsible for large numbers of acutely ill patients, especially out of hours.

The CQC said: “Compassion can be lost as staff become focused on the immediate task in hand and not on the person in front of them who they are caring for.” It also found that trusts with lower ratings tended to have bigger financial deficits.

CQC chief inspector of hospitals Sir Mike Richards said: “The NHS now stands on a burning platform — the need for change is clear, but finding the resources and energy to deliver that change while simultaneously providing safe patient care can seem almost impossible.”

The CQC report said: “Safety remains a real concern, often due to a failure to learn when things go wrong.

“What is clear is that while staff continue to work hard to deliver good care, the model of acute care that once worked well cannot continue to meet the needs of today’s population.”

It also reported “too many examples” of trust boards being “too concerned” about their organisation’s reputation which it said led to a lack of openness about issues relating to quality of care.

The CQC said that hospitals are facing “unprecedented” demand for urgent and emergency care. Last December, a third of trusts issued alerts as they needed urgent action to cope with patient numbers.

Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said: “The CQC’s stark warning that our NHS stands on a ‘burning platform’ must be at the forefront of the Chancellor’s priorities ahead of next week’s Budget.

“Our hardworking and stretched NHS staff cannot be expected to pick up the pieces from this government’s failure to properly fund our NHS and social care system.”

And health union GMB public services secretary Rehana Azam said that the report was yet more evidence that the NHS is being “underfunded and driven into the ground by the government.”

Ms Azam said: “People are living longer than ever before and our ageing population has complex needs. To treat them costs money — yet NHS funding is not keeping pace with this.

“How many more warnings does Jeremy Hunt need before he acts to save our health service?”