A NEW chairman will be appointed at an underfire mental health trust which has faced widespread condemnation for failing to protect patients and properly investigate the deaths of hundreds of people in its care.

NHS Improvement has announced it is planning to appoint Tim Smart as the new chairman of Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust.

Today’s announcement comes after former chairman Mike Petter stepped down yesterday ahead of today’s damning report from health watchdogs ruling that the Calmore-based trust has failed to improve services despite intense public scrutiny, repeated warnings from regulators and insistence from senior managers it would do so.

The report by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) reveals the trust is "continuing to put patients at risk" and had failed to put in place "robust governance" to investigate incidents, including deaths, and to respond to concerns raised by patients, their carers and staff.

The watchdog intends to use its regulatory powers to appoint Mr Smart to join Alan Yates, who was appointed as Improvement Director earlier this year.

The legal powers being used by NHS Improvement require the trust be given a chance to respond to the proposed appointment before it can be formally confirmed, which is likely to happen next week.

Jim Mackey, Chief Executive of NHS Improvement said: “It is clear that dramatic change is needed urgently at Southern Health. Our action today in proposing the appointment of Tim Smart – a very experienced NHS leader – at the top of the organisation will speed up this improvement.

“Tim’s appointment, along with other action we’ve already taken, will support this trust to provide the quality of care that people using its services expect.”

Mr Smart is was former chief executive of King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust for seven years and extensive experience of leading major NHS organisations.

It is planned that at Southern, he will lead a review into the adequacy of the trust’s current leadership.

Prior to joining King’s, Tim worked for a number of private sector companies, including BT.

Monitor has used its legal powers a number of times at Southern Health to address problems identified by the CQC.

The CQC report has criticised the trust for a raft of failures to make "sufficient changes" to the environment to make their centres safe for patients.

Mr Hunt ordered the probe following the release of the Mazars inquiry, which revealed that of the 10,306 deaths between April 2011 and March, 2015, 722 were categorised as unexpected and only 272 had been investigated.

The watchdog was also checking whether the trust has made improvements following another previous comprehensive inspection in October 2014.

But trust chief executive Katrina Percy has refused to resign despite a barrage of criticism from top politicians and grieving families.