Cameron in pledge to prioritise NHS; POLITICS: Tory leader meets care campaigners at troubled hospital.

Byline: Tony Collins

IMPROVING the National Health Service is a top priority, Conservative Party leader David Cameron told Midland hospital campaigners.

Mr Cameron met campaigners at Stafford Hospital, which was condemned last month for providing appalling standards of care.

A damning report from the Healthcare Commission detailed a catalogue of failings at Mid Staffordshire

NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Stafford and Cannock Chase hospitals.

"Shocking" standards of care for patients admitted through A& E put many people at risk and led to deaths, it said.

Between 400 and 1,200 more people died than would have been expected in a three-year period from 2005 to 2008.

Mr Cameron said: "I am standing here in front of a hospital where there was the most appalling set of circumstances and people being treated incredibly badly. That is the priority for me, the NHS. That's the priority for the British people." Health Secretary Alan Johnson condemned "inexcusable" failings at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust but ruled out a public inquiry into Stafford Hospital.

Julia Bailey, founder of Staffordshire campaign group Cure the NHS, said they would continue to push for a public inquiry.

She said: "We still don't know what the death figures are. We need this aired in public." Heather Gough, a senior A& E nurse practitioner at Stafford Hospital, said nurses were suffering a backlash of aggression and criticism.

"The report appears to have licensed people to be rude to staff," she said.

But Julie Bailey, who set up Cure the NHS after her mother Isabella died at the hospital, said it was right that patients should be more critical of staff..