BBC's Today Programme discusses patient safety failings at Essex hospital trusts

Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspectors have identified serious short-comings in the standards of emergency care, hygiene and cleanliness at Basildon and Thurrock Foundation NHS Trust, despite a 2008/09 assessment which rated the trust as "good" on quality of service and "excellent" for financial management.

With warnings signalling that mortality rates were a third higher than the national average, the CQC has sent a special taskforce to investigate the situation at Basildon and Thurrock NHS Foundation Trust.

The situation in Essex echoes that of the Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust back in March 2009, which was also given a glowing rating by the CQC before mortality rates at the hospital signalled that something was very wrong.

Items discussed in the Today Programme include:

• Professor Sir Brian Jarman, who pioneered the use of Hospital Standardised Mortality Ratios (HSMRs) as a warning system to alert bodies such as the CQC, explains how hospital mortality rates are calculated
• Baroness Young, Chair of the CQC, appeals for calm over the incidents at Basildon and Thurrock NHS trust and stresses that measures are being put in place to improve the standard of care
• A former patient at the Basildon and Thurrock Foundation NHS Trust reveals that many people in the area have "horror stories" their experiences at the hospital

Listen to the Today Programme discussion.