A DIRECTOR of the Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospitals is questioning the way NHS trusts are rated after being given a disappointing score in the latest national results.

The Healthcare Commission's annual health check, published today, replaces the old star ratings, under which the foundation trust gained the maximum three stars.

This time around, all the trusts in England have been rated as excellent, good, fair or weak in two categories, use of resources and quality of services.

While the Royal Bournemouth received a top score for its use of resources - achieved by only three per cent of trusts - it was rated only "fair" for quality of services.

Areas for improvement included managing obesity and reducing smoking, despite the organisation's campaign to become smoke-free by the end of this year.

The commission said also said the RBH underachieved in reducing MRSA - despite the trust having the second-lowest rate in the south west for medium acute hospitals.

Dr Bill Gransden, director of infection prevention and control, explained: "The commission's target was to reduce the number of MRSA cases by 50 per cent. We consistently report low cases of MRSA, so to achieve a 50 per cent reduction is extremely difficult.

"There will be some trusts awarded an excellent rating that still have higher rates of infection. We have seen only six cases from April to October compared to 12 in the same period the previous year, so we are continually improving. We also have extremely low surgical infection and clostridium difficile rates."

The hospital's director of nursing, Belinda Atkinson, said: "We will be querying the weighting of some of the scores, particularly where we believe we have made progress. We are disappointed because we don't feel the score reflects the level at which the trust performs."

Poole Hospital was judged good for quality of resources and fair for use of resources. Dorset County Hospital was good/weak; Salisbury fair/excellent; and Southampton fair/weak. Dorset HealthCare Trust was excellent/good and Dorset Ambulance good/fair.

Out of the primary care trusts, assessed before their recent reorganisation, Bournemouth, Poole and South-East Dorset were fair in both categories, North Dorset good/fair and New Forest weak/fair.