Report on CQC 'sad tale of failure'

The body which regulates hospitals in England is being accused of deliberately covering up evidence of its own failings.

A report to be published later says the Care Quality Commission failed to investigate the deaths of new-born babies at a hospital in Cumbria.

The Conservative MP Stephen Dorrell, who chairs the Commons Health Select Committee, told the Today programme's John Humphrys that the report made "extremely depressing reading" that underlines past failings of the CQC. But he said that the regulator was now on the right track following of a clear-out of the senior management.

"This is clearly a very sad tale of failure to respond when evidence was produced of service failure and then, having failed to react, covering up the fact that they'd failed to react - which is unacceptable behaviour anywhere in the public sector but in particular in a regulator," he said.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Wednesday 19 June 2013.