Andy Burnham MP, Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary, responding to Jeremy Hunt’s announcement on Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust, said:

“However Ministers dress it up, this is a significant downgrade of Stafford Hospital and a desperate blow for the town. After all they have been through, the people of Stafford had a right to expect that the purpose of this lengthy process of inquiry was to make their services safer, not to take them away. They will feel bitterly let down today.

“In the last four years, Stafford Hospital has been through a long public inquiry followed quickly by an unsympathetic administration process. No District General Hospital in the country could have survived that intact without more support from the Government. The simple fact is, it didn’t have to end up like this – the fact that it has, is down to the decisions of this Government.

“The people of Stafford deserve nothing less than a fully functioning, safe and sustainable hospital.”