COLCHESTER General Hospital has rated itself inadequate.

As part of ongoing checks on how the Turner Road hospital is faring, bosses have been producing a monthly monitoring report since June last year.

The assessment is carried out using the Care Quality Commission’s own marking method.

In each of the months since June 2016, the hospital has marked itself “inadequate”.

The low scores are mostly down to consistent failures in the “effective” category which means despite better marks in the “caring” and “safe” areas, the trust, which has been in special measures for more than two years, must be rated “inadequate”.

The report will go to the hospital’s board of directors tomorrow, when an update on a three-day CQC inspection, which took place last week, is expected to be given.

Despite the self-assessment scores, Colchester MP Will Quince has backed the hospital, which he says has been improving markedly under the stewardship of chief executive Nick Hulme.

Mr Quince said: “I have seen a massive turnaround even in the amount of case work which comes my way.

“Nick Hulme never tries to sugar coat what needs to be done.

“He has told me: ‘I don’t want to come out of special measures until we deserve to come out of special measures,’ which I find incredibly refreshing.

“People have a right to think when the hospital does come out, it will be for genuine reasons.

“Nick Hulme has experience at turning around hospitals having done so at Ipswich Hospital.

“I am the same as Nick, I desperately want our hospital to come out of special measures.

“The staff deserve it and morale would be given a massive boost but it has got to be for genuine reasons.”

“In the past, people before me – and myself to be fair – were taken in by the line from previous chief executives that ‘there is nothing to see here’.

“But now I believe the right man is in the right role and I really do hope the CQC inspection went as well as we all hope.”

A Colchester General Hospital spokesman emphasised despite how well the trust scored in some areas each month, if a one single “inadequate” is awarded, the trust’s overall rating must be inadequate.

Between Tuesday and Thursday, the Turner Road hospital was inspected by CQC inspectors.

Between 40 and 50 clinicians from other hospitals also joined the team.

Inspectors visited all wards including, end of life care areas and maternity and paediatrics wards as well as A&E and the emergency assessment unit.