Fundamental changes to the way NHS staff are trained are expected to be recommended by an inquiry which looked into the deaths of hundreds of people at Stafford Hospital.
The Sunday Telegraph and Sunday Times say it will call for poor managers to be replaced and better training for nurses and healthcare assistants.
The inquiry, chaired by Robert Francis QC, sat for 139 days and cost £10m.
The Department of Health says reports of the findings are speculation.
The inquiry looked into a four-year period from 2005 where up to 1,200 people died at the hospital, the victims of neglect or sub-standard care.
It heard evidence of patients dying after falling when they were left unattended and others being denied food and drink.
'Culture of fear'According to the Sunday Telegraph, the results of the public inquiry will deliver a damning verdict on the entire NHS.
It says Mr Francis will describe a "culture of fear" in which pressure was piled on staff to put the demands of managers before the needs of patients.
The newspaper claims the report will call for greater regulation of NHS management and an overhaul of training for nurses and health assistants.
The Sunday Times says the report, which Mr Francis will hand to Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt this month, will recommend a statutory "duty of candour" which would oblige hospitals to inform patients or their relatives when treatment has gone wrong.
It says the inquiry will recommend that hospitals which cover up mistakes by doctors and nurses should be fined and even closed down in some cases.
Mr Hunt is quoted in the Sunday Telegraph as saying the events at Stafford represented "the most shocking betrayal of NHS founding values in its history".
Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust looks after Stafford and Cannock Chase Hospitals.
Last month, a panel appointed by the regulator Monitor said the trust was "unsustainable" in its present form.
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