NO ACTION will be taken against the Royal Bournemouth Hospital following an investigation into its finances and performance.

The trust faced scrutiny from hospital regulator NHS Improvement, formerly Monitor, after posting a deficit of £5.2 million in 2014/15 and breaches of its accident and emergency and cancer waiting times targets.

NHS Improvement’s regional director Claudia Griffith said: “Since we started working closely with Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust we have seen the trust continue to work hard to address the financial and operational challenges it faces.

“We will be closing our investigation without taking any further action.

“This is good news for patients and staff and we look forward to working with the trust to make sure it has the right support in place to continue to make positive changes.”

Trust chief executive Tony Spotswood said: “We are delighted that NHS Improvement has concluded its investigation with such positive results, and that the organisation is confident in our trust’s ability to provide high quality patient care while being mindful of finances and service sustainability.”

A Trust spokesman said: “Our full year deficit for 2015/16 was £11.6 million, against an initial plan of £12.9 million and a revised plan of £11.9 million.

"This is in line with a sharp decline across the whole NHS provider sector which ended in total with a year-end deficit of £2.45 billion, or almost three times than that reported in 2014/15.

"Acute providers, such as RBCH, had more financial pressures than the rest of the sector for several reasons including the high level use of contract or agency staff and increased demand, especially in urgent and emergency care.

“Thanks to robust steps we have taken, including reducing our reliance on agency staff, our planned deficit for 2016/17 is £1.4 million.”

The Care Quality Commission found the hospital to be “dangerous and inadequate” following an inspection in December 2013. It has since made progress and was given a Requires Improvement rating by the government agency in a report published earlier this year.