Kent’s biggest hospital has been placed in special measures amid a vast catalogue of failings.

Medway Maritime, Gillingham, is one of 11 which will be probed over the next year by the new chief inspector of hospitals, Sir Mike Richards - who starts today.

It comes after a review by NHS medical director Sir Bruce Keogh, which probed the 14 hospitals with highest death rates in England, slammed aspects at Medway Maritime.

Health secretary Jeremy Hunt told MPs: “A public consultation [in Medway] heard stories of poor consultation with patients, poor management of deteriorating patients, inappropriate referrals and medical interventions, delayed discharges and long A&E waiting times.”

The report’s damning findings include:

• Staffing levels so low that they are potentially unsafe, “undoubtedly” caused by cost saving programmes including the closure of 60 beds over the last three years. Problems are especially bad at A&E, the High Dependency Unit and Acute Medical Unit.
• Junior doctors frequently having to make decisions beyond their level of skill, especially in heamatology and orthopedics.
• Junior doctors frequently left in charge of parts of the High Dependency Unit, where a quarter of all patients die. Despite this being higher than expected, the panel saw no evidence of the hospital carrying out any in-depth review to find out why.
• A “large number of committed and concerned staff who frequently reported that they feel unable to raise patient safety concerns and when they do, little or no action is taken.”
• No clarity on who was in charge of finding the root cause of all deaths - despite death rates being consistently high, at 232 more than expected last year.
• Not enough action taken to prevent very sick patients deteriorating, especially out of hours and on weekends.
• Poor management of bed occupancy and flows throughout the hospital.
• An A&E department where staff struggle to cope with a “totally unsuitable layout” with “frequent use of escalation wards, overstretched staff and a failure to predictably and systematically manage patients on the correct care pathway, including critical care”. Medway had the third-slowest waiting times in the country between April and June this year.
• A “lack of clear focus and pace at board and executive level” to improve safety. Board members focused so heavily on a planned merger with Darent Valley Hospital, Dartford, that they put no improvement strategy in place for services and buildings at the Medway site.

The panel interviewed top directors at the Gillingham hospital as well as staff and patients.

Its report noted many senior staff had been replaced since the Keogh review was announced - including new directors of nursing, communications and strategy and governance.

A new medical director has been appointed and will start in August 2013. The chairman and finance director were also replaced last year.

The hospital is at the centre of a full-blown party-political row after Mr Hunt told MPs the previous Labour government was to blame and tried to “shut up” whistleblowers.

“The system’s reputation mattered more than individual patients,” Mr Hunt told MPs to deafening jeers.

“Targets mattered more than people. We owe it to the three million people who use the NHS every week to tackle and confront abuse, incompetence and weak leadership head-on.

“In some cases trust boards were shockingly unaware of problems in their own hospitals.”

But shadow health secretary Andy Burnham said it was the current government’s staffing cuts which caused the problems.

He said: “You shouldn’t play politics with people’s lives and you shouldn’t play politics with the NHS on which we all depend.”

Rochester and Strood MP Mark Reckless told MPs just three consultants were working at Medway A&E - adding the number has now risen to six and will soon hit eight.

Gillingham and Rainham MP Rehman Chishti, now a Conservative, said he raised concerns about the hospital when he was a Labour member.

“In 2005 and 2006 Medway Maritime Hospital had the seventh worst mortality rate in the country and nothing was done,” he told MPs.

Chatham MP Tracey Crouch questioned Mr Hunt on finding a quick resolution to the problems, adding: “I’m very disappointed.”

Labour parliamentary candidate for Chatham, Tristan Osborne, said Mr Hunt today “gave no timetables for improvement and offered no confidence to residents who have experienced a worsening situation in the Medway Maritime since 2010.”

Patient Hannah Farrell was upset after she heamorrhaged while giving birth to her son Noah, now 22 months old.

The 26-year-old, of West Street, Gillingham, claimed she was told she was making a fuss when dilated by 3cm - despite losing two thirds of her blood and almost dying when she gave birth to her first child Ava, now six.

Miss Farrell claimed staff only read her notes in full, seeing the reference to the previous child, after she voiced her panic.

She claimed: “I got very upset. I felt afraid to give birth after a previous bad experience and [the midwife] did not make me feel at all safe.

“I walked across the corridor, barely 10 steps and screamed in pain. My son’s head had crowned but the midwife refused to believe me because she said I was only 3cm dilated.

“I had to lie on the hospital bed crossing my legs to hold my baby in. I still had my trousers on at this point and the midwife wouldn’t even take a look. Moments later my waters exploded and my son came out.

“A public consultation heard stories of poor consultation with patients, poor management of deteriorating patients, inappropriate referrals and medical interventions, delayed discharges and long A&E waiting times” - health secretary Jeremy Hunt

“I met some midwives and staff who were amazingly kind and caring, but in a time when you are vulnerable, scared and in pain, you do not need someone who is in a position of care to put you in danger because they are having a bad day.

“I appreciate they are understaffed, but as professionals they should not let that stress affect the care they give to their patients. I will never get over my experience, and I’m sure there are others who are the same.”

Patient Claire Betts, who lodged a formal complaint over how the hospital treated her for kidney stones, said A&E had to be improved urgently.

Mrs Betts, 43, from Sittingbourne, said she waited almost four hours at Medway’s A&E department in March 2012.

Even though that came within government guidelines, she said waiting that long was agony.

“I had a sudden onset pain which got worse very quickly,” she claimed. “It took 15 minutes to be seen initially for triage then you have to go to the other side of the waiting room to go and see reception.

“That massages the figures because it takes longer before you are registered and the clock is ticking.

“About 40 minutes later I projectile vomited all over the waiting room. They didn’t see me then, they just cleaned up the vomit.

“I had something similar in Maidstone earlier this year and I was triaged, seen and out of there within about two-and-a-half hours.”

Gray Smith-Laing, medical director at Medway Maritime Hospital, said: “This has clearly become a very hot political topic and I think it’s rather unfortunate that the 14 trusts are caught up in a debate between Labour and the Conservatives about who is responsible for any problems in the National Health Service.

“Medway has had a very, very clear statement following the review of services here. It says ‘the review panel did not identify any sustained failings in the quality of care and treatment provided by the trust’.

“I think that is a very clear and unequivocal statement. It doesn’t mean there are no problems, indeed we found the review extremely helpful in confirming many of the problems we had already identified ourselves and on which we were already working with well-established action plans.

“The report confirms the need to press ahead in certain areas, to add impetus and speed and to make sure our external partners are involved in the overall plan.”

For in-depth coverage of the report, pick up a copy of the Medway Messenger - out Friday.