The CQC inspections of the services run by East Cheshire NHS Trust were carried out in July and September.

Chris Storton, CQC deputy director of operations in the North West, said: ‘At these inspections, we were disappointed to see a deterioration in the quality of care in medical and urgent and emergency services at Macclesfield District General Hospital. However, it was positive to see women and their babies continuing to receive good care in maternity services.'

The service was highlighted as an outlier in the North West for pressure ulcers, with 98 patients developing them while in hospital.

A&E delays and overcrowding were also noted due to high demand and limited bed capacity, with pressures exacerbated by understaffing.

However, maternity staff received ‘overwhelmingly positive feedback' from women and their families who felt supported and treated with dignity and respect throughout their stay.

Ged Murphy, chief executive for East Cheshire NHS Trust, said: ‘We welcome the reports from the CQC, which will play a valuable part in helping us make important improvements to the services we provide to our patients.

‘We are pleased to see that our maternity services retained their rating of good. At the same time, we recognise that there is further work to be done to improve our medical and urgent and emergency services, which have been rated as requires improvemen', although the CQC described colleagues in these services as "...kind and compassionate staff working hard in medical and urgent and emergency services...".

‘Our focus remains on addressing some long-standing challenges and we are committed to supporting our teams to ensure that the actions we take lead to sustainable improvements in our services.

‘Our priority is to continue to deliver the highest standards of quality care with continued dedication from our staff together with the involvement of patients, families and carers.'