'Hot-head baroness' quits over hospital standards

London: A vicious feud has broken out over a Labour-appointed peer who unexpectedly quit as head of a National Health Service watchdog at the centre of controversy over shocking hospital death rates.

Well-placed government sources claimed that Baroness Young, chair of the Care Quality Commission (CQC), was "volatile and hot-headed" and had sent abusive e-mails to colleagues. But her allies say she is the victim of a dirty-tricks campaign — after a series of clashes with Health Secretary Andy Burnham.

The attack came after the peer resigned in the wake of the CQC's bombshell disclosures that death rates at Basildon Hospital in Essex were 30 per cent higher than the national average. Lady Young is believed to have had a furious row with Burnham after the watchdog's findings were leaked.

She is thought to have angered Burnham by criticising the hospital ratings system, and he is also understood to have been livid over the way she allowed the report to be turned into an attack on the government.

The clash intensified on Saturday night amid extraordinary claims that the Baroness faced a revolt by her own staff over the way she ran the independent CQC, which has been in operation only since April.

The Mail on Sunday was told by a senior source that Lady Young "had very strong opinions ... there were rumours of abusive e-mails and concerns about how she spoke to people".

It is understood that several members of her staff were "on the brink of resigning" over her management style.

Announcing the peer's departure on Friday, officials tried to present Lady Young's appointment as a "transitional" arrangement.

But her friends say that shortly after the leak, she had a series of angry meetings with Burnham over the system for rating hospital care.

Rating

Burnham is said to have repeatedly rejected her calls to improve the much-criticised system, which gave Basildon a "good" rating just weeks before an unannounced inspection uncovered filthy wards and a high death rate.

The furious rows are out of character for the normally mild-mannered Burnham, who has recently been tipped as a contender to take over the Labour leadership from Gordon Brown. Some friends have advised him to "toughen up" his image in preparation for a run at the job.