NHS services provided by East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust have improved massively.

The Care Quality Commission rated the Trust as good or outstanding in almost all of the services they inspected in March.

It said the Trust has made a marked improvement in the quality of its care.

The Emergency Department at Eastbourne was rated as requires improvement but good for being well led and caring.

For the first time, outstanding ratings were given in three categories.

Dr Adrian Bull, chief executive, said: “I am delighted that the hard work and commitment of people across the organisation has been recognised by the CQC, with the services they inspected rated as mainly good or outstanding.

“I am also pleased that the Chief Inspector sees no reason for us to stay in quality special measures.

“We have a talented and professional workforce and the rating of good for caring is recognition of this. “The Trust only remains requires improvement because of the limited inspection.

“Once our other services are inspected, we fully expect to be ‘good’ overall and we have encouraged the CQC to come back and inspect those areas as soon as they can.

“Our aim is to be an outstanding organisation by 2020 which provides excellent healthcare for the people of East Sussex, and that people are happy and proud to work.

“This report is clear evidence we are making good progress. We must continue to provide consistently high standards of care across all of our services.”