I barely know what patients I have.” Another said: “We often have cases where patients collapse unseen in a room.”Spaces along corridors in A&E were labelled with letters tacked to the walls as if they were bed bays to disguise the fact that patients were being left for long periods on trolleys. The report says: “Inaccurate representation of the waiting time … for admission to the wards distorts the severity of this issue.”A year ago, serious problems at the hospital were identified in a report by management consultants but the commission’s investigators found no action had been taken to remedy the situation. The report reserves its strongest criticism for the failure of management to act on the earlier warnings which it viewed with “extreme concern”.However, staff were praised for the care and humanity they showed in difficult circumstances.The trust comprising three main hospitals – Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother in Margate, Kent and Canterbury in Canterbury and William Harvey in Ashford – has been blighted by scandal in the past.Kent and Canterbury Hospital was the scene of the NHS’s worst cervical cancer screening disaster in the mid-1990s when at least eight women died and 90,000 smears had to be re-examined. William Harvey Hospital was where the gynaecologist Rodney Ledward performed operations that maimed scores of women and led to him being struck off the medical register in 1999.Today’s report, the result of a routine investigation, reveals the number of patients waiting over 12 months for admission is almost twice the average, emergency readmission rates for most medical and surgical specialties are “significantly higher” than elsewhere.Peter Homa, the commission’s chief executive, said: “This report highlights very serious issues at East Kent which need urgent attention.” He said commission would return in six months to check on progress. David Astley, 48, chief executive of the trust, said a new A&E department was opening at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital this week. “We are confident that when the CHI makes a return visit our emergency services will be transformed,” he said..

“Are you talkin’ to me?” may be Robert De Niro’s most famous line. But it’s not a stance one would normally expect from someone fronting a press conference to promote a West End musical. He enthused about the idea, apparently.Perhaps he was more talkative then. Yesterday at a press conference at the Dominion Theatre in Tottenham Court Road he was asked to explain why he had become interested in the show and what it was that attracted him.”I think it’s going to be terrific. That’s it.”What was his own favourite rock music?”Don’t ask me. I can’t think.”Do you have a favourite Queen number?”No.”"This is your first musical production. How does it differ from your film production work?”"It’s a musical.”It was a shame to interrupt such a study in monosyllabic charisma.

But, as fortune would have it, De Niro, a man of few words, was seated next to Ben Elton, a man of many.De Niro and Elton, with Queen’s guitarist, May, and drummer, Taylor, were speaking about the show as they stood on the stage set, a decayed, crumbling version of Tottenham Court Road Tube station.Elton, who has written the book for the musical, clearly does not share the superstitions of the theatre world about making predictions. His only concern seemed to be to make them as apocalyptic as possible.”The audience has the right to expect something as fabulous and grand and theatrical as the music itself,” he said.”I had almost given up trying to find a story that could contain the incredible richness, wit and variety of Queen’s greatest hits. Then the idea suddenly came to me while I was pushing the kids in the pram through Regent’s Park.”Where De Niro never gives you as much information as you need, Elton is always happy to give you a little more than you need.The show is due to open at the Dominionon 14 May. Initially there were plans to base it on the story of Queen, but May admitted that would have been “embarrassing” for the figures involved. “We just couldn’t make it work,” he said.Instead Elton was drafted in and created a world which through globalisation has become homogenised and where musical instruments have been banned. But a group of rebels set out to find mythical electric guitars which have been set in stone many years earlier. “It’s The Matrix meets the Arthurian legend meets Terminator 2,” Elton said.Robert De Niro almost nodded..