The chief executive of Tameside Hospital in Greater Manchester, Christine Green, has stepped down. Her resignation follows a loss of faith in her ability to improve the hospital's record of poor patient care by MPs, doctors and NHS regulators.
Tariq Mahmood has also stepped down from his post of medical director however will continue working at Tameside Hospital as a consultant obstetrician, but will no longer act as the head of the hospital's doctors.
Temporary replacements for the bosses were announced today. Karen James and Brendan Ryan, of University Hospital of South Manchester (UHSM), will be interim chief executive and medical director at Tameside Hospital.
The Tameside and Glossop clinical commissioning group (CCG), the GP-led NHS body which sends patients for treatment at Tameside Hospital, was so concerned by the poor standard of patient care at the hospital and its failure to respond to previous warnings that it called for the resignations.
Urgent changes to the hospital's practices and culture will now have to be implemented by the temporary chief executive to address the issues revealed by two separate NHS investigations and following regular criticism of its levels of care by NHS regulators, MPs, the local coroner and a patient action group.
Sir Bruce Keogh, the NHS medical director, is due to report his findings into standards of treatment at 14 hospitals with unusually high death rates, including Tameside, later this month. This prompted a meeting earlier this month about Tameside's standards of care, which reinforced the hospital board's conclusion that changes were needed.
Christine Green’s statement in full, was reported in the Manchester Evening News and can be read here
By Caroline Guy
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