Labour MP demands explanation on why CQC 'slipped out' second damaging review into its investigations

John Woodcock is representing families who lost children at a scandal-hit hospital

Labour MP John Woodcock has written to the Care Quality Commission asking the watchdog to explain why it 'slipped out' the second damaging review (Getty Images)

The NHS watchdog must explain why it “slipped out” a second damaging review into its investigations, the MP representing families who lost children at a scandal-hit hospital has said.

Labour MP John Woodcock has written to the Care Quality Commission after The Independent exposed a report, published quietly in January, that raised concerns over the role played by NHS executives in an alleged cover-up over baby deaths at the Furness General Hospital.

In a letter to the CQC's chief executive David Behan, Mr Woodcock, MP for Barrow and Furness, wrote: “In the current climate, your decision to publish this report on your website apparently without any form of press release or notification of local stakeholders has already aroused damaging suspicion that this may have been another attempt to bury findings that could have shown the organisation in a bad light.”

The report, by consultancy firm Deloitte, has come to light in the wake of allegations that the CQC attempted to cover-up a damning internal review of its regulation of the hospital, part of the Morecambe Bay NHS Trust.

A CQC spokesman said that the report had been flagged up to “interested parties”, adding that Mr Behan would reply to Mr Woodcock in person.