HOSPITAL chiefs in Hampshire are to investigate the controversial past of their own chief executive, the Daily Echo can reveal.

Bosses at the trust that runs Southampton General Hospital will launch an inquiry into the record of Mark Hackett, who left his previous employers in financial crisis.

Mr Hackett was handed the £145,000 a-year job to turn around cash-strapped Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust - despite taking his former trust more than £7m into the red.

Now, under pressure hospital trust board members have ruled that his work at the Royal Wolverhampton Hospitals NHS Trust should be scrutinised by a special panel in the new year.

At the same time unions in Wolverhampton have called on colleagues in Southampton to fight job cuts proposed by Mr Hackett and claimed he should be sacked from the NHS.

Last week the Daily Echo revealed that a damning independent review had criticised Mr Hackett for failing to balance the books in Wolverhampton.

Further investigations revealed that the trust board knew his time in the West Midlands was under scrutiny when they employed him.

Richard Keightley, Southampton University NHS Hospitals Trust chairman, said the review had been taken "extremely seriously" by the board and a four-person panel would look at its full findings.

The review also prompted union officials to call for Mr Hackett, 41, to be kicked out of the NHS for leaving his last trust in such a financial mess.

The troubled trust, which runs Southampton General, The Princess Anne and the Royal South Hants hospitals, currently has a deficit of £11.3m and last month revealed plans to make up to 100 staff redundant and axe about 85 beds.

Southampton University NHS Hospitals Trust must save £15m by April 2005 in order to keep its finances under control. Measures taken so far have included axing 450 posts, freezing recruitment and limiting the number of pre-operation overnight stays for patients.

Mr Keightley, who has stood by his chief executive since news of the review broke, said Mr Hackett had been put through a "rigorous" interview process before his appointment.

He said: "The board has taken extremely seriously the report that was made public in Wolverhampton. We have discussed what went on with Mark Hackett and we have got most of the information that we need, but there is one further report we have not seen and we need to see that.

"We are going to establish a panel after Christmas to clarify and understand how the deficit in Mark's previous trust increased and whether he had any knowledge of that when he arrived with us. We just want to be confident in the recruitment process we went through.

"We hope that we can then say as a board that we are fully confident and we will go forward with Mark."

The investigation was announced as unions in Wolverhampton called on their counterparts in Southampton to stand up to Mr Hackett and fight job cuts with "all their might and resolve".

In an open letter, representatives from public services union Unison in Wolverhampton said Mr Hackett should have been sacked and that his decision to make further job cuts to save money for Southampton's hospitals should be opposed.

Tim Cottle, senior shop steward for Unison in Wolverhampton, wrote: "I have first-hand experience of the financial mess at New Cross Hospital Wolverhampton in the wake of Mr Hackett and other trust board members.

"I say to the hospital staff in Southampton: 'Do not allow redundancies to proceed and oppose them with all your might and resolve.' All frontline staff are valued workers and earn every penny they get.

"I am amazed, and so are many of my colleagues, that your trust board have such faith in Mr Hackett. I and many other staff here in Wolverhampton do not share that faith. He should have been sacked from our trust and not promoted to yours."

Steve Brazier, Unison's regional head of health for the south-east, told the Daily Echo: "We are still in consultation over job cuts and are not convinced of their merits."

Mr Hackett declined to comment.

A spokesman for Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust said: "The unions in Wolverhampton should concern themselves with matters in Wolverhampton. This is just mischief-making in my view."