08:27
Tieng Anh Vui
The identities of the officials involved in the alleged cover-up by the NHS regulator of its failure to investigate deaths of babies at a Cumbria hospital have been revealed.
The Care Quality Commission has named former chief executive Cynthia Bower, her deputy Jill Finney and media manager Anna Jefferson.
They were all said to be present at a meeting where deletion of a critical report was discussed.
Pressure has mounted to reveal names.
Ahead of the publication of the names, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said the decision by the CQC to reveal the names was very pleasing.
"I think this is a sign that the NHS is changing - because we've had a history of cover-ups going on many, many years and now what's happening is that when there was an issue the new management of the CQC immediately asked for an independent report.
"They published that report yesterday and now as I understand it they've got legal advice that says they can issue the names of the people mentioned in that report. And I think that's so important because there has to be accountability inside the NHS for people's actions and people have to know where the buck stops when something goes wrong."
The alleged decision to block publication of the report emerged on Wednesday when the CQC published a report it had commissioned from consultants Grant Thornton.
The firm was asked by the health regulator to investigate its failure to spot the problems at Furness General Hospital, run by the Morecambe Bay NHS Trust.
In 2010 it gave the hospital a clean bill of health despite problems emerging about the maternity unit.
More than 30 families have now taken legal action against the hospital in relation to baby and maternal deaths and injuries from 2008.
Grant Thornton found that in 2011 an internal review was ordered into how the problems had gone unnoticed.
But in March 2012 it was decided the findings should not be made public because the review was highly critical of the regulator.
That order is said to have come from a senior manager who has not been named and who denies the allegations.
The Grant Thornton report said this "might well have constituted a deliberate cover-up".
'Good faith'
The CQC though removed the names of those involved, arguing it would be a breach of the Data Protection Act.
But this was then rejected by Information Commissioner Christopher Graham.
He said: "What appeared to be going on yesterday was a sort of general duck-out saying, 'Oh, data protection, sorry can't help you,' that's all too common and in this case it certainly looked as if data protection really wasn't the issue."
He said he could not order the CQC to reverse its decision but said he was glad it was looking at the issue.
"So far as the Data Protection Act is concerned, we all have a right to the protection of our personal privacy but if you are a senior official then there are issues about the point at which your privacy is set aside because of over-riding public interest. That's really the issue at stake here," he said.
On Wednesday Mr Behan said he had been advised that "to put people's personal data [into the report] would be a breach of their rights".
"I was acting on the legal advice I was given, I acted in good faith," he told Newsnight.
He said he had "listened to what the information commissioner has said".
He added: "We've decided today that we will review that legal advice and we've commissioned a review of that legal advice to see if we can put this information into the public domain."
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