Staff at Rotherham Hospital would not want their families treated there

The number that would has dipped as redundancies have begun to bite as part of a three-year crisis recovery plan and £50 million being cut from the budget.

Staff say the threat to jobs is taking its toll but bosses are confident morale will “shoot back”.

Michael Morgan, interim chief executive of The Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust, admitted communication with employees hadn’t been good and said: “With a recovery like this, you will have a period of six months where there’s morale problems.

“What you do find after about six months is that you get through these issues. People start understanding what recovery is really all about, the place is not going to close and the morale starts coming back.”

Patients told visiting councillors that ward staff could not do enough for them — but noticed that they were thin on numbers.

Read more on this in the Rotherham Advertiser, plus why the interim chief exec says the hospital will never close and the reasons behind a refusal to disclose the salaries of the consultancy team brought in to turn around the hospital’s fortunes.