Working on an acute medical care of the elderly ward, this issue is discussed quite often between nursing and medical staff when these reports come out in the media.
The only reason we can think of as to why it is not defended by the RCN, NMC etc is because nurses and medical staff cannot defend themselves publicly.
If there is a complaint regarding care or the use of the pathway for example, patients and relatives are free to go to the press and report what they seem to believe is poor care or neglect.
The nursing staff and medical teams can defend themselves during an investigation into the complaint. Even when there is no fault with the nursing care, the public are still free to go to the press still complaing of crap care, whilst the staff have to keep quiet due to patient confidentiality.
Sometimes things do go wrong, that shouldn't happen and quite rightly, the issues need to be raised and addressed. But there are patients and relatives that refuse to accept what they are being told, then the threats of making complaints start. It happens a lot.