Hospitals that give false information about death rates will face unlimited fines under a package of new powers aimed at preventing another Mid Staffordshire-style health scandal.
Ministers hope the new criminal offence will deter health chiefs from giving false or misleading mortality statistics as part of efforts to bring an end to a "cover-up culture" in the NHS.
Care minister Norman Lamb said the laws would be a legacy of the campaign fought by those who suffered the "horrors" of failings at Stafford Hospital.
Legislation published yesterday also sets out plans for a cap on the amount people will have to pay for social care. A £72,000 limit on costs will be introduced in 2016 and the threshold for financial assistance will be extended from £23,250 to £118,000 at the same time.
The Care Bill responds in part to Robert Francis's report on the failings at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust which found as many as 1,200 patients might have died needlessly after they were "routinely neglected".
New powers will give the regulator body, Monitor, the ability to intervene if the chief inspector of hospitals identifies problems with care quality. Monitor will also be able, for the first time, to put a foundation trust into administration on clinical grounds if the Care Quality Commission (CQC) requires it.
Launching the Bill, Mr Lamb said those affected by the Mid Staffordshire scandal "suffered wholly unacceptably".
"In a way a legacy of their campaign is that we are introducing new rules that will be much more effective," he said.
The Bill will give the CQC legal powers to design a new rating system for hospitals and care homes, similar to the way Ofsted measures the performance of schools. The new criminal offence will apply to all providers of NHS secondary care, including private firms, and will initially be restricted to the treatment of mortality data.
One of the criticisms of the response to the Mid Staffordshire situation was the lack of individual accountability, but the new criminal offence will only apply to organisations, not people responsible. However Mr Lamb said under employment law a prosecution would give "pretty powerful justification for dismissal" of any individual identified as responsible for giving false or misleading data. He said the actions taken by the Government, including steps already announced such as a duty of candour and a ban on gagging clauses, were "bringing an end to the cover-up culture that has existed in some places in the past".
