US businessman called in to rescue crisis-hit Rotherham Hospital

Michael Morgan has taken over as interim chief executive of the Rotherham NHS Trust from Matthew Lowry, who has been axed.

The move is part of a an emergency restructure at the hospital under which the number of executive directors on the trust’s board has been reduced.

But the board has denied that the head of human resources, Jackie Bate — who was only appointed last summer — and another director have either left, or will be going.

Mr Morgan has been brought in by management consultants Bolt Partners, who  brought in experts Tim Bolot, and Joshua Ejdelbaum to help rescue the hospital, which is grappling with a range of severe financial and staffing issues.

Mr Morgan has never worked in a British hospital runs a Healthcare company in the US and Mr Bolot is his UK director.

Another expert, Larry Blevins, will be employed to conduct a review of a 350m IT system for patient records.

Chairman of the trust’s board Peter Lee says the changes are necessary because the board has “identified a number of significant issues of operational and financial performance that must be addressed as a matter of urgency”.

But the measures have run into criticism from MPs and unions concerned at the scale of the crisis engulfing the hospital.

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HOSPITAL IN INTENSIVE CARE: See this week’s Advertiser contains a special report on the  state of Rotherham.