Brighton Health Care NHS Trust was today saved from an NHS hit squad because standards have improved.

Health Secretary Alan Milburn ruled out a takeover and said senior managers should be congratulated for raising standards during the past three months.

The trust, which runs the Royal Sussex County Hospital, faced the prospect of being run by a charity, an NHS management team or even the private sector.

It was named as one of 12 in the country which picked up no stars in the Government's hospital rating system and was branded "failing".

Chief executive Stuart Welling was given 12 weeks to improve performance or risk losing his job.

Today the Department of Health said four trusts would be taken over by teams of NHS experts.

But Mr Welling and his team have done enough to be allowed to continue to manage the Brighton trust themselves.

Improvements include:

All women referred urgently with suspected breast cancer being seen by a consultant within two weeks
Patients no longer waiting more than 12 hours in accident and emergency after doctors decide to admit them to hospital
Outpatient waiting list numbers continuing to fall.

Mr Milburn said the trust's improvement plan had been accepted. He added: "Staff and management deserve to be congratulated."

Hove MP Ivor Caplin, who met hospital managers on Friday, said: "This is a huge step forward for the hospital, its staff and, most importantly, for the patients of Brighton and Hove.

"They now know their hospital is making significant improvements to health care.

"There is lots more to do at the Royal Sussex County Hospital but this is a significant step in the right direction for everyone involved."

The trust's performance will be reassessed later this year.

Mr Welling will stay on as head of the new Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust, which was created three weeks ago with the merger of Brighton Healthcare NHS Trust with Mid Sussex NHS Trust.

The new trust has a £200 million budget and provides hospital services to a population of 460,000 across Brighton and Hove, the Ouse Valley and Central Sussex.

None of the four trusts which faced a takeover are to be run by the private sector.

Instead, they will be run by managers from within other NHS trusts.

But the Government has not ruled out the use of managers from universities, charities, other public services and, controversially, the private sector at a later date.

Mr Milburn wants to draw up a list of 100 "entrepreneurial experts" for future takeovers of failing trusts.