HEALTH watchdog the Care Quality Commission (CQC) has lifted the last of a set of strict conditions imposed on the registration of a health trust which oversees the borough’s only general hospital.

Eight conditions relating to care at the Barking Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals Trust (BHRUT) were imposed on the trust when it was registered with the CQC in 2010.

The original conditions related to resuscitation training, appraisals, pressure damage, nurse mandatory training, child protection training, the use of treatment rooms, discharge planning and staffing.

The last of those has now been removed.

The government wants to close maternity and A&E services at King George Hospital in Goodmayes and move them to Queen’s Hospital in Romford, but the move is on hold until BHRUT meets a set of 81 separate recommendations laid down by the CQC.

Some 48 of those are yet to be fully met, but the removal of restrictions on the trust’s registration will be seen by some as another step towards reconfiguration.

BHRUT Chief Executive, Averil Dongworth, said: “We, and the CQC, are confident that the improvements made are well embedded and sustainable.”

But a spokeswoman for CQC stressed that the lifting of conditions on the trust’s registration did not signal an end to its monitoring of BHRUT.

And she added: “The most recent inspection report on maternity services at Queen's makes it clear that CQC still has concerns about treatment and care there - and many of these relate to the sustainability of improvements made so far.”

Click here to follow the Wanstead and Woodford Guardian on Twitter

Click here to follow the Wanstead and Woodford Guardian on Facebook