It is one of 18 recommendations accepted fully by the government after an independent enquiry into at least 400 unnecessary deaths at Stafford Hospital between 2005 and 2008.

The independent inquiry, led by Robert Francis QC, found that NHS Mid Staffordshire hospital trust was too focussed on targets and cost-cutting.

The report ‘lays bare a dysfunctional organisation at every level and appalling failures of basic care,' health secretary Andy Burnham admitted.

The health secretary committed to developing 'a new and robust system for senior NHS managers to ensure high professional standard, and prevent failing managers from being employed elsewhere in the NHS.' 

NHS Confederation chief executive Steve Barnett said the report was ‘a sobering account of what happens when leadership, managerial and clinical, fails to focus on the things that really matter to patients'.

A further inquiry, again chaired by Robert Francis QC, will look at why the commissioning, regulatory and supervisory bodies did not detect the failures earlier.

In his evidence to the inquiry, clinical director of primary care Dr David Colin-Thomé described it as ‘disturbing' that no regulators stepped in earlier and ‘disappointing' that no clinicians raised concerns.

Click here for more on the Mid Staffordshire Hospital Trust enquiry