Inspectors have carried out an unannounced visit to a hospital's troubled emergency department to see what improvements have been made.

The CQC (Care Quality Commission) team spent two days at Medway Maritime Hospital as part of a routine inspection to assess standards last week.

The urgent and emergency care services were put under the spotlight again in a follow up inspection to the last visit held at the height of the Delta variant of Covid which saw the department under extreme pressure.

That inspection in December 2020 found the service was significantly underperforming and inspectors placed it in the lowest rating category.

A report will now be produced to see what final decision inspectors will make about changing any of the department's current ratings.

The CQC ranked the department as inadequate when they last attended and downgraded three out of five areas – being safe, responsive to people’s needs and well led – into the worst category.

But the department was rated good for being effective and caring for patients.

The 2020 visit was sparked following concerns raised about the hospital's "poor performance" against standards.

Medway NHS Trust chief executive Dr George Findlay says he was encouraged by the visit and there is optimism around the trust about changes demonstrated to the CQC.

He said: "Huge thanks to all our staff for being so welcoming to CQC during the unannounced inspection of urgent and emergency care services at Medway.

"Really great opportunity and pleased to see colleagues able to talk proudly about improvements and changes they have made."

A spokesman for the CQC said: "We recently inspected Medway NHS Foundation Trust as part of our national inspection programme.

"As the inspection has just only taken place the report has not yet been produced so we’re not in a position to share any details."

The report will be published once it is completed.