COLCHESTER Hospital "ran out of time" and must now focus on getting out of special measures, according to chief executive Frank Sims.

The health boss also admitted scathing comments from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and NHS Improvement (NHSI) are a "difficult pill to swallow".

In a damning indictment, the chief inspector of hospitals said he has "no confidence" in the Turner Road hospital board and found "consistently poor and unsafe practices" during inspections.

But Mr Sims said he is 100 per cent confident the hospital will come out of special measures - but refused to set a deadline.

He said: "The fact is the law states you can't be in special measures forever. You have to come out of it and two-and-a-half years is too long.

"We have demonstrated improvements but we still have pockets where we are not delivering the best care all the time.

"That is going to take some time to put new systems in place and we have run out of time in terms of the CQC."

Mr Sims added: "The comments from the Prof Sir Mike [Richards, chief inspector of hospitals] and Jim Mackey [chief executive of NHS Improvement] were really difficult read and they are particularly difficult for staff to read.

"What I would say is hospital staff work tremendously hard and they do so under a lot of scrutiny in everything they do.

"The issue for us has been our consistency."

The health chief also pointed to improvements in staff morale over the last year, citing an increase from 43 per cent in 2014/15 to 55 per cent in 2015/16 in the number of staff who would recommend the hospital as a good place to work.

In the same time the number of staff who recommend the hospital as somewhere to be treated jumped from 48 per cent to 62 per cent.

When pushed on how soon patients would see tangible evidence of improvement, Mr Sims said a timeline is yet to be agreed with his Ipswich counterpart, the CQC and (NHSI).

That is expected to be agreed in the coming weeks and could include details of what services, if any, will be shared between the two hospitals.

Mr Sims added: "We are in the early days. We have had the conversations at a high level but what we want to do is get our respective teams to have those conversations now.

"We are, though, very clear that together we want to create a plan that really enables us to build on the improvements we have already made.

"I'm completely confident [in getting out of special measures].

"We are both committed to ensuring that we deliver the best care and most sustainable care."