THE chief executive of Worcestershire Acute Hospitals Trust says they want improvement "as fast as possible" and to get out of special measures, as a new Care Quality Commission (CQC) report stresses more work is needed.

The trust, which also runs Worcestershire Royal as well as Redditch's Alexandra and Kidderminster hospitals, was first placed into special measures in December 2015.

Last February a section 29A warning notice issued by the CQC told the trust to get its house in order or face further action.

Further inspections have been held since then and the latest CQC report has been released today, following a November inspection during which inspectors visited emergency care at the Worcester and Redditch hospitals.

The CQC has not changed its overall inadequate rating of the trust, but areas of improvement were found.

Urgent and emergency care services at the hospitals were now changed to a 'requires improvement' rating on whether they are safe, while medical care at the Alex was improved from 'inadequate' to the 'requires improvement' rating.

The rating for whether urgent and emergency services are effective at Worcestershire Royal Hospital also improved to 'good', from a 'requires improvement' rating.

Chief Inspectors of Hospitals, Professor Ted Baker, said: "While the improvements haven't resulted in a change to the trust's overall rating of inadequate, and the trust remains in special measures, it demonstrates that the trust is working to improve services for its patients.

"Further improvements are still needed and we will continue to monitor the trust closely. This will include further inspections."

Michelle McKay, the chief executive of Worcestershire Acute Trust, said: "The public, as are we, are impatient for improvement.

"One of the things we need to be cognisant of is when you are introducing a lot of change, introducing improvement processes, they get embedded so that they are sustainable.

"It would be a terrible thing if we found that we can achieve some improvement, but it doesn't stick.

"Sometimes that means it takes a bit longer, but I completely understand the community's desire - as is the desire of staff and the board - that we move to improvement as fast as we can."

Asked about reports of staff running out of trolleys as patients waited in corridors at county hospitals during the recent winter pressures, Mrs MacKay said they were "very focused" on continuing to improve that area.

"Winter has been challenging for us," she said.

"We are certainly seeing higher levels of demand than last year.

"We know early in December we didn't use the corridors for days at a times, so we know we are on the right track.

"We do certainly recognise that not everyone has the perfect experience we would want them to."