Health chief quits

East Kent hospitals chief executive Matthew Kershaw has quit amid an A&E crisis that has left patients under his watch enduring some of the worst waiting times in the country.

New figures revealing that only 61.8% of patients are being seen within four hours were published on Thursday, with Mr Kershaw’s shock resignation announced the following day.

He will be taking up a post as a fellow with the King’s Fund, a health think tank, but it is widely speculated recent poor A&E performance played a part in his departure.

In July the east Kent trust had the worst A&E waiting times in the country and only performed better than one other last month.

Critics blame the decision to cut emergency provision at the Kent and Canterbury Hospital and divert more than 600 patients a month to the sites at Ashford and Margate.

Mr Kershaw has faced mounting criticism over the performance of the A&E departments and the longer term plans for the trust – especially over the future of the K&C.

He said: “Over the last two years we have worked together very hard and made improvements in performance, developed an emerging strategy for improved healthcare in east Kent with our partner health and social care organisations.

“We have also made a strong start on improving our finances. We have not, however, made as much progress as we would have liked with respect to performance on waiting times in emergency care.

“In this trust, as in many trusts around the country, there remains much to be done in order to deliver this and I think this is an appropriate time for me to hand over the executive leadership of the trust to somebody who will further progress this work.”

Mr Kershaw was appointed chief executive in January last year and helped lift the trust out of quality special measures, although it remains in special measures for its finances.

Opinion is divided on whether he was forced into resigning.

Campaign group Concern for Health in East Kent (Chek) has been particularly critical of Mr Kershaw’s work and believes his

Matthew Kershaw, east Kent hospitals chief executive, has quit as A&E waiting times are revealed as some of the worst in the country, see our front page, inset