Health watchdog sacks boss of failing hospital

By Peter Griffiths

LONDON (Reuters) - A health watchdog sacked the chairman of an NHS hospital on Friday, accusing him of failing to cut high death rates, cancer care waiting lists and queues in the casualty ward.

Monitor, the body that regulates NHS foundation trusts, said it had serious concerns about the leadership of Richard Bourne, chairman of the Colchester Hospital University NHS Foundation Trust in Essex.

"Regulatory action has been prompted by the Trust's failure to comply with healthcare standards (and) its failure to exercise its functions effectively, efficiently and economically," the watchdog said in a statement.

The hospital missed its target to treat cancer patients within 62 days in the second quarter of this year and failed to make enough progress in cutting waiting times in accident and emergency to four hours or less.

Foundation hospitals were set up as part of a flagship government scheme to try to give local health chiefs more power over decision-making and budgets.

A patients' lobby group strongly criticised a second NHS Trust in Essex for its poor standards.

The Patients Association, an independent watchdog, demanded urgent reform of hospital regulation after inspectors found high death rates, dirty equipment and low standards of care during unannounced checks at Basildon and Thurrock NHS Trust.

The group said a new regulatory system was a "farcical box-ticking exercise" that was too slow to respond to evidence of failings at the trust.