Treatment at one of Britain's leading children's hospitals is worse than that in the developing world, according to a damning doctors' report uncovered by The Observer which also reveals how parents are "told lies" to cover up sub-standard care.

In the document, which the head of the Royal College of Surgeons describes as alarming, consultants are scathing about the Birmingham Children's Hospital. Last night MPs called for a full inquiry into the quality of care at the hospital, where children are treated for life-threatening conditions such as liver or kidney failure, neurological problems and chronic heart complaints.

• Support for surgeons undertaking kidney transplants is so poor that consultants felt they had received better back-up when performing such procedures on a visit to Lagos, the capital of Nigeria.

• Transplant services for children with serious liver failure are so poor that they constitute "a third-class service [which is] putting patients at risk".