Labour's Andy Burnham denies NHS cover-up

Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham today denied putting pressure on the health watchdog to play down concerns over a scandal-hit hospital trust where mothers and babies died.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has been under fire over allegations it covered up its failures over investigations into the Morecambe Bay trust.

The Sunday Telegraph said it had seen a cache of documents which revealed the CQC was intent on suppressing negative publicity and was under pressure from Labour ministers in the run-up to the 2010 election.

But Mr Burnham, who was health secretary at the time, said he denied the central allegation that he put pressure on the CQC to cover-up information about Morecambe Bay, saying it was "fundamentally disproved" by the decisions he took to actively identify problems at hospitals during his time in office.

He said he had "no immediate recollection" of having conversations about Morecambe Bay at the time but that the issues may have been raised in a "general meeting".

Mr Burnham said the Government had questions to answer over the suppression of the CQC report into Morecambe Bay.

He told Sky News's Murnaghan programme: "I never said to the CQC 'don't say that, do say the other'.

"That wasn't my role, they were an independent regulator.

"Obviously we had discussions about problems that were in the NHS, we had a discussion about Basildon hospital and it was at that point that I said we needed to have a system that could provide the reassurance that people needed and also where there were problems for them to be brought out.

"The central allegation that I was kind of in that period trying to say don't do anything, don't say anything, don't bring any problems out, keep them all hidden, is fundamentally disproved by the decisions I took in relation to the expediting the registration of hospitals."

Asked why he told Morecambe and Lunesdale's Tory MP David Morris that he had no recollection of discussions about Morecambe Bay, Mr Burnham said: "I didn't want to provide wrong information.