A SENIOR health boss said he still cannot understand why York Hospital did not get a better inspection report.

Mike Proctor, deputy chief executive of York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, spoke of his frustration at a council meeting last night.

A Care Quality Commission (CQC) report, published last month, rated the trust as requiring improvement.

Mr Proctor told City of York Council’s health and adult social care policy and scrutiny committee that only 30 per cent of items assessed were rated as requiring improvement, with the other 70 rated 'good'.

He said: “How that translated into an overall mark of requires improvement, I still can’t explain.

Mr Proctor added:“There are things in the report which we disagree with, but we have taken it on the chin.

“Our action plan has gone into the CQC and has been accepted by them.”

The area identified as most needing improvement in the report was safety and Mr Proctor told councillors progress was being made.

He said: “We encourage staff to report when things go wrong and hold their hands up, so that we can learn from them.

“I think we are a much safer organisation than we were, even two years ago.”

CQC inspectors also highlighted insufficient staffing levels across the trust.

Mr Proctor said 74 registered nurses had joined the trust last month, while a further 60 will join in January following a recruitment drive in Spain.

“The root cause of all our performance, quality and financial issues is a lack of staff,” he said.

“We need to retain better. I would like to persuade the University of York to recruit more local people.”

Mr Proctor said this should mean more nurses looking to work in the area.

Cllr Tony Richardson pressed Mr Proctor on the number of agency staff being used.

He said: “Why do you not retain the staff that are there? Other people get paid a lot of money when they pick and choose their hours.”

Mr Proctor replied: “When we get to higher staffing levels, those hours won’t be there as much.”