Hospitals in Lincolnshire have been plunged into crisis after the resignation of their chairman over claims that he was being bullied into putting targets above patient care.

David Bowles has quit as hospital trust chairman, claiming pressure is being put on staff to put targets before emergency treatment.

In a letter to Lincolnshire MP Mark Simmonds, he says he has witnessed "a substitution of bullying for performance management and an obsession with targets rather than safety".

He says he was put under pressure by the Strategic Health Authority to guarantee that all non-urgent patients were seen within 18 weeks of a referral by a GP, in order to hit government targets.

He claims that an unprecedented number of emergency cases made such a guarantee impossible.

He describes demands on Lincolnshire hospitals as "out of control with the highest ever level of weekly emergency admissions this month."

He added: "I refuse to work in a system which seems ... to have lost sight of the critical issues of patient safety."

At least one other senior member of United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust is also understood to be considering their position over the SHA's conduct.

In a statement NHS East Midlands, the local strategic health authority, said it "has had concerns about overall standards and particularly the governance at United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust" and had carried out a review of patient safety, experience and quality of care.

The review did not highlight any issues and two further reviews on the governance and financial arrangements are being carried out.

"The people of Lincolnshire must have access to the same high standards in all aspects of care as elsewhere in the country and the SHA must be assured that consistently high standards are achieved every single day," it added.

It is understood that Mr Bowles has also written to NHS chief executive David Nicholson asking for an inquiry.

For more on the targets row, see Monday's Echo.