LEADING figures at Thurrock Council have taken the Mid and South Essex Hospitals Trust to task over its continued failures.

As reported earlier in the week, the Trust's children's services including those at Basildon Hospital, were highly criticised and described as inadequate by a Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection.

That quickly followed publication of government performance tables for hospitals trusts, which ranks the local service in the bottom ten across 134 in the country. That performance drew comments from both Thurrock MPs who called for improvement and intervention.

Now Thurrock Council's leader, Cllr Lynn Worrall and its cabinet member of health and well-being, Cllr Mark Hooper, have met with bosses at Basildon Hospital, seeking change.

Cllr Hooper said: "Children and young people who are ill or injured deserve access to the best possible medical care, just as all of the borough's residents do.

"It is worrying that this inspection of the care that children and young people receive at Basildon Hospital appears to be falling short of what patients and their families should expect from it

"The CQC report seems clear that staff at the hospital are working incredibly hard and under extremely stressful conditions to try and provide the proper levels of care but that the hospital faces difficulty in maintaining appropriate staff levels and giving the staff working there the support they need.

"Earlier this week myself and Cllr Worrall, Leader of Thurrock Council, met with the Hospital Chief Executive to discuss the improvements they need to make.

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"It was pleasing to see that they recognised that services need to improve and are putting a great deal of effort in making those positive changes.

"We had an extremely constructive conversation about how we can support them on their journey of improvement."