the Trust Board said that the other was responsible for holding the Trust's executive team to account. Circle Health's chief executive Steve Melton said before the report was published: “We understand their report will be published soon, and fully expect it to be unbalanced and to disagree with many of its conclusions". He said the pressures on the Trust could only be resolved through "joined up reform in Cambridgeshire across hospitals, GPs and community services". Dr Suzanne Hamilton, chair of the Medical Advisory Committee at the hospital wrote to the local paper to say that the CQC report was not consistent with "the vast reams of verified statistical data" about the hospital. Fiona Allinson, head of hospital inspection told the CQC board meeting "It was one of the worst inspections that I had ever been to. I drove home and wanted to drive back again with my nurse's uniform on to sort it out." In January 2015 Hinchingbrooke was said to be the second least efficient hospital in England, according to Lord Carter's review of NHS efficiency, with potential savings that could have been made of £20.5 million a year. Circle Health handed the management of the hospital back to the NHS on 31 March 2015. The Trust then announced in April 2015 that it expected the deficit for the year ended 31 March 2015 to be £14 million, which was considerably worse than had been forecast by Circle. This was attributed to (i) reductions in local prices during commissioning negotiations costing the Trust in excess of £3 million (ii) a high demand for agency staff generated by increased volumes and acuity of non-elective patients increasing the interim staffing bill by nearly £12 million for the year (iii) the impact of failed cost improvement programme schemes and (iv) a charge of £1.3 million being Hinchingbrooke’s share of the losses of the Pathology Partnership joint venture. Developments The hospital came out of special measures with a rating of 'good' in August 2016. This was one of the fastest exits from special measures in England and, at the time, this was the first time that a Trust had exited with a rating of 'good'. Despite this the small size of the Trust was making it hard to sustain high quality clinical services and so alternative management solutions were sought. Accordingly in April 2017 Hinchingbrooke Health Care NHS Trust merged with Peterborough and