Alan Milburn has vowed to change the culture of the NHS and bring in sweeping reforms following the events at the Alder Hey children's hospital.

The health secretary said on Monday that "the days of cover-ups needs to come to an end". Milburn said that the problem facing the NHS was that it was "too much a 1940s system operate in a 21st Century world". He said: "The NHS was conceived in an era of deference and hierarchy. The mantra 'the doctor knows best' fitted the time. That era is now gone; we live in a different century. These are very different times."

Milburn said new rules would be brought in to protect whistle-blowers who report cases of medical negligence. "We need to draw a special distinction between acts of incompetence and negligence. We all make mistakes. Even health secretaries make mistakes. Some of the problems can be designed out of the system. To protect patients staff need to be able to report near misses and medical accidents confident they will not suffer as a result."

Referring to events at the Liverpool hospital he said: "For trust to thrive between patients and the NHS, there has to be informed consent, and not a tick-in-the-box consent regime. Consent must be based on discussion and dialogue, where consent is actively sought and positively given. The days are gone when the NHS can act as a secret society. The NHS has to be open and honest in its dealings with the people it serves."

On Tuesday the minister will publish the report into events at the Liverpool hospital which contains findings he described on Sunday as "grotesque" and among the most shocking he had read.

The government's chief medical officer, Dr Liam Donaldson, says that more than half of Britain's hospitals removed organs from patients without properly informed consent.

The report will criticise medical staff, hospital management and Liverpool University for the way parents' complaints were dealt with. It will also say that disciplining those involved will be difficult because they were paid by universities.