Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary, had been critical of the decision to award Rose Gibb a pay-off of half of her annual salary when she left Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust.

Ms Gibb left the trust by mutual agreement last year after a damning report from the Healthcare Commission revealed appalling hygiene standards, leading to at least 90 deaths.

Today, however, the trust board said it had determined to pay her the minimum to which she is entitled by law – six months’ pay in lieu of notice. Her salary was £145,000 to £150,000 a year, the trust said.

Ms Gibb could contest the payment, claiming unfair dismissal, so the argument may not yet be over. The trust said it had taken legal advice “and, following that advice, she will be paid only her legal entitlement of six months salary.”

The report said “significant failings” at all levels contributed to more than 1,000 patients being infected with the bug across three hospitals run by the trust.

Inadequate staffing levels, dirty wards and too much focus on debts and labour Government targets all contributed to two serious outbreaks of C diff in the autumn of 2005 and early 2006, the study said.

Nurses were found to have told some patients with diarrhoea to “go in their beds”. The affected hospitals were the Kent and Sussex Hospital, Pembury Hospital and Maidstone Hospital.

Former Bucks Fizz star Cheryl Baker has previously called for Maidstone Hospital to stop admitting patients who were vulnerable to C diff. Her mother-in-law Doreen Ford, 77, died there from septicaemia while infected with the bug.

The Trust was the subject of an undercover BBC investigation in May 2004 – months before the 2005 and 2006 outbreaks of C diff.

It found evidence of blood stains ingrained on the floor and clinical waste skips containing bags full of old dressings and bodily fluids left open in corridors used by visitors and patients.

From:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article3247289.ece