Iain Duncan Smith has vowed to "press" the departing chief executive of Barts Health NHS Trust over the damning Care Quality Commission (CQC) report on Whipps Cross Hospital in Leytonstone. 

The report published on Tuesday rated urgent and emergency care, general medical care, surgery, end-of-life care, outpatients and services for children and young people as inadequate. 

Inspectors concluded patients were put at risk through insufficient staffing, high use of agency staff and low staff morale and discovered a culture of bullying and harassment of staff by management. 

As a result, England's largest health trust has been placed in special measures and ordered to take urgent action to protect patient safety and improve services. 

The Chingford and Woodford Green has met with senior managers, including CEO Peter Morris, who is to step down in the summer, on a number of occasions this year.  

He said: "The findings of this report reinforce concerns of my own about staffing levels which I have consistently raised with Whipps over the last couple of years. 

"I will be meeting the chief executive on Friday to press him on how Whipps plans to address the findings in the report. 

"On a separate note, I have also long been concerned about the deficit at Whipps, recently revised from £44m to £93m, and I had a meeting with the chief executive a couple of weeks ago about this. 

"I have also raised the matter of the deficit with the Health Secretary."

Barts Health, which also runs Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel, St Bartholomews in The City, Newham University Hospital, Mile End Hospital and the London Chest Clinic, reported a debt of around £44million last summer.

It has now more than doubled to £93m, the Trust revealed last month. 

Mr Morris, chairman Stephen O'Brien, chief nurse Professor Kay Riley and finance director Mark Ogden have all announced they will step down.

Mr Morris apologised for the widespread failings, saying: "We are very sorry for the failings identified by the CQC in some of our services at Whipps Cross and we know the trust has a big challenge ahead.

"Barts Health is committed to ensuring the safety and welfare of every one of its patients.

"This report describes services that fall a long way short of what we aspire to."

A spokeswoman for the trust said the "resignations are not linked to the trust's deficit."