The first week on the job for the new Mayday chief executive was a baptism of fire as he had to deal a hospital unit going up in smoke.

It was day three of the job and Nick Hulme was woken with the news that the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) suite was ablaze.

He said: “I was still not too sure of my route to the hospital so jumped in a cab to make sure I did not miss it.

“The impact of having to close all of our emergency ward and outpatients for 24hours was very difficult but it was the right decision.

“The most amazing thing was the reaction of the staff on the ground who worked flat out and also the understanding of the public.

“I even got a call from the local bishop offering support, prayer was probably what I needed at that point.”

Mr Hulme said the dedication of the Mayday staff gave him confidence in the hospital, a place he wants Croydon to be proud of.

He said: “There is a real sense of community here and the staff are proud to work here, you don’t get that in a lot of other London boroughs.”

The new chief executive, who comes to Croydon from Buckinghamshire Hospitals NHS Trust, is dedicated to building on Helen Walley’s success and making Mayday a hospital people want to recommend to their friends and relatives.

He said: “Mayday does have a poor reputation. We have got to change that.

Mr Hulme spoke about the appalling error in the Newborn Hearing Department which saw the hospital contacting 700 families whose babies may not have been correctly diagnosed because of faulty equipment.

Six children were identified with a hearing loss that was not picked up by the first test.

He said: “We have apologised to the families that were affected.

"Mistakes do happen in healthcare and the most important thing is that we learn from those mistakes, there has been a very detailed investigation into this area which is ongoing.”

He said errors of this magnitude were usually down to processes and systems and not individuals.

“We look at what went wrong. Where we have similar systems in place and check them robustly. ”

Mr Hulme spoke about the loss of the Hyper-acute stroke unit which is going to be located at St George’s Hospital.

He said: “The most important thing for me is that the people of Croydon get the best possible care if they are unfortunate enough to have a stroke.

“We work in partnership with St George's and with Kings in the East of the borough. It is not the time it takes to get to a specialist centre its more important what happens when you get there.

“St George's will be able to offer 24 hour care, it would not necessarily be appropriate for us to do that.”

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