The CQC inspection downgraded the hospital's safe rating from good to inadequate and issued a warning notice having found people in corridors in some cases for over 18 hours and waiting for up to an hour for triage after arriving by ambulance.

Andrew Hines, chief executive at Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust, said: ‘While we have much more we want to do to continue to transform our services, since the inspection we have seen significant improvements across areas including same day emergency care, frontline staffing and care for patients attending our hospital with mental health needs.'

The trust said it had made significant progress to improve patient flow through dynamic discharge processes and strengthening multi-disciplinary working across urgent and emergency care, including:  

• revised triage and streaming, with a new acuity tool and stronger senior clinical oversight to identify higher-risk patients earlier
• dedicated staffing and consultant input strengthened rapid assessment and ambulance handovers
• stronger staffing, monitoring and escalation arrangements, with call bells installed so patients can summon help (with the trust ultimately working towards eradicating corridor care) and 24/7 increased nursing support in the adult waiting area
• fewer temporary escalation spaces, with strengthened safety criteria covering privacy, dignity, infection prevention and emergency care.

In addition, the trust has launched a new cardiology SDEC, expanded its frailty SDEC service, become one of the early adopter sites of NHS England's National Acuity Model, introduced a new South Thames Retrieval Service referral process for paediatric emergency and is developing a new urgent treatment centre East Surrey Hospital.