Inspectors from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) have returned to Hinchingbrooke Hospital this week to carry out a follow-up inspection.

In January, Hinchingbrooke was placed in special measures after the CQC published the findings of a previous inspection carry out in September 2014, which rated the 304-bed hospital as “inadequate”.

In a double blow for Hinchingbrooke, Circle, the private management firm in charge, announced a few days later that it was pulling out of its 10-year franchise early and the hospital reverted to NHS control.

However, in April the Huntingdon hospital was reassesed by the CQC and upgraded to “requires improvement” after the previous ruling was challenged by hospital bosses and found to contain “300 errors”. The CQC refused the remove the hospital’s “special measures” status and that still stands.

The five areas the hospital is judged on during a CQC inspection are: safe, caring, well-led, effective and responsive.

During the last inspection, all areas of the hospital were said to “require improvement” except outpatients, critical and intensive care, and maternity and gynaecology departments which were said to be “good”.

A “requires improvement” rating, according to the CQC criteria means, “the service isn’t performing as well as it should and we have told the service how it must improve”.

The CQC will publish the findings of the latest inspection in December.