Damning report shows hospital trust's failures

The grave condition of some parts of the NHS is revealed today by a report which condemns a rural hospital trust for leaving patients at risk in overcrowded accident and emergency departments, using deceit to get round government targets and failing to act on earlier warnings to improve patient safety.

An investigation by the Commission for Health Improvement, the Government's NHS inspectorate, found the state of East Kent Hospitals NHS trust to be among the worst in the country.

Staff said patients were routinely left in corridors in A&E for up to two days where it was difficult to get access to resuscitation and other equipment. Operations were routinely cancelled and doctors could not find patients.

One member of staff quoted in the report said: "I don't know how long patients have been here. I know the time they arrived, but not the day. I barely know what patients I have." Another said: "We often have cases where patients collapse unseen in a room."

Spaces along corridors in A&E were labelled with letters tacked to the walls as if they were bed bays to disguise the fact that patients were being left for long periods on trolleys. The report says: "Inaccurate representation of the waiting time ... for admission to the wards distorts the severity of this issue."

A year ago, serious problems at the hospital were identified in a report by management consultants but the commission's investigators found no action had been taken to remedy the situation. The report reserves its strongest criticism for the failure of management to act on the earlier warnings which it viewed with "extreme concern".

However, staff were praised for the care and humanity they showed in difficult circumstances.

The trust comprising three main hospitals – Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother in Margate, Kent and Canterbury in Canterbury and William Harvey in Ashford – has been blighted by scandal in the past.

Kent and Canterbury Hospital was the scene of the NHS's worst cervical cancer screening disaster in the mid-1990s when at least eight women died and 90,000 smears had to be re-examined. William Harvey Hospital was where the gynaecologist Rodney Ledward performed operations that maimed scores of women and led to him being struck off the medical register in 1999.

Today's report, the result of a routine investigation, reveals the number of patients waiting over 12 months for admission is almost twice the average, emergency readmission rates for most medical and surgical specialties are "significantly higher" than elsewhere.

Peter Homa, the commission's chief executive, said: "This report highlights very serious issues at East Kent which need urgent attention." He said commission would return in six months to check on progress. David Astley, 48, chief executive of the trust, said a new A&E department was opening at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital this week. "We are confident that when the CHI makes a return visit our emergency services will be transformed," he said.