The Health Secretary has defended the Government's targets for the NHS in the wake of failings at several hospitals.
Andy Burnham told the Commons the best hospitals were providing "high-quality, safe care" as well as meeting performance targets, such as seeing A&E patients within four hours.
He was responding to criticisms from the Tories that clinical priorities were being "distorted" by targets, with waiting times put above patient care.
Mr Burnham said patient safety was his "highest priority" as he made a statement to MPs following revelations about high death rates at Colchester Hospital University NHS Foundation Trust and poor hygiene and standards of care at Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
A report by Dr Foster Intelligence rated a dozen hospitals as "significantly underperforming", despite nine of them being rated good or excellent by official regulator the Care Quality Commission (CQC). Seven hospitals were also found to have considerably higher mortality rates for the past five years.
Mr Burnham said "patient safety is our overriding concern" and "there is never any room for complacency". He added: "Patient safety must be the subject of a continuous process of improvement. However, there is considerable variation in standards across the NHS from one hospital to another and, in some cases, it is unacceptably wide."
Shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley said: "It is not good enough for the Secretary of State to order the Care Quality Commission to see if other trusts require intervention in light of the Basildon and Thurrock investigation.
He added: "The Government, instead of listening to the messages, wants to shoot the messengers. The public's confidence must be restored. This will only be achieved if lessons are learnt, a robust regulation system is put in place and reforms are made that put patients in the driving seat." The Tories identified 20 common areas of concern where trusts that have been investigated in the last few years.
But Mr Burnham defended NHS targets, saying: "You have made a big criticism of Government targets and suggested that they are running counter to efforts to improve patient safety in the NHS. It is the case that the best hospitals are doing both - they are meeting targets that matter to patients in terms of performance standards, they are meeting financial targets and they are providing high-quality safe care."
Mr Burnham said trusts would be required to investigate all serious incidents and unexpected deaths and report them to the National Reporting and Learning System as part of their registration with the CQC. And he said NHS trusts must start preparing themselves for registering with the CQC from January.
