The Conservative Party has accused the government of not knowing whether the former head of a scandal-hit hospital will be prevented from getting a huge pay-off.
According to reports, Rose Gibb, the former chief executive of Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust, is in line for a £250,000 sum.
Back in October, she left her job by mutual agreement after a damning Healthcare Commission report revealed how appalling hygiene standards directly caused the deaths of 90 patients from Clostridium difficile (C difficile).
And Health Secretary Alan Johnson ordered the trust to withhold any severance payment to Ms Gibb pending legal advice.
But during a debate on the Health and Social Care Bill, Conservative health minister Stephen O’Brien, said Labour health minister Ben Bradshaw could not confirm if the pay-off was being withheld.
He added: “It is nothing short of disingenuous that Alan Johnson should seek to suggest to the public that Rose Gibb will not get her pay-off, when officials are now briefing that she will.
“The Labour government continues to be soft on superbugs whilst patients and their families up and down the country suffer.”
He continued: “Alan Johnson must answer for Labour’s failure on hospital infection, and for the continuing fiasco over fat pay-offs for those who fail our NHS.”
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