A hospital trust has appointed a new interim chief executive to lead its improvement programme.

Medway NHS Foundation Trust is currently on the lookout for a permanent chief executive but has made an internal appointment to fill the post in the meantime.

Last week Jayne Black stepped up from her role as chief operating officer to become the hospital’s new interim chief.

Jayne was previously deputy chief executive and chief operating officer at Croydon Health Services NHS Trust before fulfilling senior management positions at Western Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust and Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust.

She joined Medway last year.

Her appointment follows the departure of Dr George Findlay, who joined on an interim basis to lead the trust in May last year for 18 months after former chief executive James Devine left.

But just nine months in it was confirmed Dr Findlay would be leaving the post before the end of the interim period.

He is set to rejoin his former employers at the University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust, where he was deputy chief executive and chief medical officer before moving to Medway.

When he joined Medway, the emergency department had just received an official warning notice following a scathing inspection by the CQC.

In another wider inspection at the hospital last July, the CQC said while improvements had been made there remained "a lot of work to do" and kept the hospital's rating as requires improvement – the second lowest.

Then in August, a team from NHS England was drafted in to give its support to drive improvements after Medway was designated one of the country's most in need of help.

The report, which is the latest published about the trust, gave Medway a good rating for being caring and safe but the effective and responsive category was listed as requires improvement.

In June, inspectors were also concerned about infection control measures in place at the hospital.

However, earlier this year NHS figures showed the trust had met all four of the national cancer treatment standards for the first time.

And the team in the emergency department also won a national award at the annual HSJ Value Awards for a programme to help treat patients during the pandemic.

The trust is currently looking for its fourth chief in recent years and Leon Hinton, chief people officer at the hospital, confirmed a recruitment process is currently underway to appoint its next permanent chief.