The head of a hospital trust where at least 400 patients may have died because of appalling emergency care is understood to have received pay rises totalling more than £30,000.

The salary of Martin Yeates, chief executive of Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, increased from a pay band of up to £140,000 to one of up to £180,000 over two years, while standards at the trust deteriorated.

A report by the Healthcare Commission found “shocking and appalling” standards of care for patients admitted through A&E from 2005 to 2008. Investigators estimate that between 400 and 1,200 more people died than would have been expected.

The commission was heavily critical of the trust’s board, which it said had been focused more on finance, targets and achieving foundation trust status than on patient care.

Last August the governors’ nominations and remuneration committee doubled the salaries of other non- executive board members. Toni Brisby, the chairwoman, went from £20,144 to £40,000 for 3½ days’ work a week. Other non-executive directors, who worked 2½ days a month, were awarded rises from £5,875 to £12,000. Ms Brisby resigned this month and Mr Yeates has been suspended on full pay.

Gordon Brown and Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary, apologised yesterday for failings at the trust. Mr Brown said that standards “fell far short” of what people could expect from the NHS but insisted that it was an isolated incident. “We do apologise to all those people who have suffered from the mistakes that have been made in the Stafford hospital,” he said. What had happened there “should never be allowed to happen again”.

Andrew Lansley, the Conservative health spokesman, asked why it had taken so long to identify such serious problems with the board. “If Alan Johnson had intervened a year ago when his department knew of the Healthcare Commission’s urgent concerns about how badly the hospital was failing patients, he could have secured the removal of the chief executive and ensured that there was no reward for failure,” he said.

Mr Johnson told MPs that the report on Mid Staffs had described “astonishing failures at every level”. He said: “In short, it is a catalogue of individual and systemic failings that have no place in any NHS hospital but which were allowed to happen by a board that steadfastly refused to acknowledge the serious concerns about the poor standard of care raised by patients and staff.”

He said that two independent reviews had been ordered — one into the trust’s procedures for emergency admissions and treatment, the other into what was happening at the trust before the Healthcare Commission’s investigation. “Patients will want to be absolutely certain that the quality of care at Stafford Hospital has been radically transformed.”

Mr Johnson added: “I can confirm that the new leadership of the trust will respond to every request from relatives (of patients who died) and carry out an independent review of case notes to determine whether or not the care that their loved ones received was appropriate.”

Families have described “Third World” conditions at the trust, saying that some patients had to resort to drinking water from vases while others were left screaming in pain.

The commission began an inquiry after concerns were raised about higher than normal death rates in emergency care, in particular at Stafford Hospital. The trust argued that the anomalies were due to “problems with its recording of data and not problems with the quality of care for patients”, the report said.

A spokeswoman for Mid Staffs NHS Foundation Trust was unable to comment on Mr Yeates’s pay but said that the salaries of the chairwoman and non-executive directors were independently reviewed and were in keeping with salaries paid at other similarly sized NHS foundation trusts.

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