THE country's most senior healthcare inspector has congratulated Barrow's hospital on its award of a prestigious good rating after witnessing poor standards with his own eyes less than three years ago.

Professor Sir Mike Richards, chief inspector of hospitals for the Care Quality Commission, travelled to Cumbria yesterday to speak personally to staff about their "remarkable" achievements since 2014.

His visit comes just days after Furness General Hospital and its parent trust became the fastest acute care organisation to pull out of special measures and into good in a record time of two years and eight months.

In an interview with the Evening Mail, Sir Mike described the turnaround within the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust as an inspiring NHS success story which other trusts around the country would now look to follow.

He said: "I'm delighted they have done this in such a short amount of time. They have got further than any other trust in significant difficulty working across a split site.

"But we certainly haven't gone soft on Morecambe Bay. Our inspections are as rigorous now as they were in 2014, if not more so, so we can be absolutely confident in saying that recognition of the improvements achieved here are well deserved."

Sir Mike led an inspection of UHMBT in 2014 before opting to place the trust in special measures. He visited Furness General Hospital to see for himself the standards of care provided to patients.

Sir Mike returned to the Dalton Lane site again in 2015 following the publication of Dr Bill Kirkup's Morecambe Bay Investigation Report to speak to families in the area who were affected by maternity failings between 2004 and 2013.

The most recent CQC inspection, carried out in October last year, saw the trust promoted from "requires improvement" to "good" with end-of-life care at FGH securing "outstanding" status and elements of the hospital's maternity provision also held up as an exemplar model of care.

So far, no trust plunged into special measures has ever achieved the very best rating available - that of outstanding.

But Sir Mike said the highest rung on the inspection ladder was not out of reach for FGH and the trust as a whole if improvements continued to be made.

He said: "Being in special measures is not about being placed on the naughty step, it's about working with support to secure the improvements that are needed.

"Trust chief executive, Jackie Daniel, and later the trust chairman, Pearse Butler, believed it could be done and they have done it, though it didn't happen spontaneously.

"It took a lot of hard work, a clear strategy. The secret to the success of this trust is how the leadership believed in and motivated the staff. They all deserve congratulations for that."

He added: "I felt quite emotional coming here today on behalf of the population and the trust that such change has happened."