Edmonton's North Mid has dramatically slumped to the bottom of the hospital league tables.

Health watchdogs stripped the hospital in Sterling Way of its two star-rating after the hospital ended the year £4million in debt and failed to meet key targets.

Hospital bosses said they were disappointed but not surprised at being judged ill-favourably by the Healthcare Commission in this year's annual performance targets.

Chief executive Clare Panniker said: "While we do not consider ourselves to be an under-achieving organisation, we clearly need to improve in some important areas to give our community the services they deserve."

She added: "While the zero score is unsurprising given our under-achieving in the core targets, it should be said that we had excellent results in the other areas."

Every year, inspectors from the Healthcare Commission rate each hospital trust in England and Wales on a scale from zero to three stars.

The North Mid failed in three key areas treating all patients within 17 weeks of referral from their GP, passing 98 per cent of visitors through the Accident and Emergency (A&E) department within four hours, and sound financial management.

The result means the North Mid joins just nine specialist and acute trusts with a zero star rating in England.

But Ms Panniker said the hospital met several key clinical targets such as treating all patients with chest pains within 14 days of their complaint.

Added to the planned £100million hospital rebuild, and the successful slashing of MRSA rates, she said there was cause for optimism.

She said: "Star ratings do not show the whole picture at the North Middlesex and over the last year staff have worked extremely hard to bring about real improvements."

Edmonton MP Andy Love said: "I am very disappointed the North Mid has not managed to maintain their two-star rating but somewhat shocked to learn it has gone down to zero stars.

"I think the ratings reflect some of the extremely difficult circumstances the hospital faces but something has gone wrong and the management urgently needs to pick up their position."

Meanwhile, Chase Farm Hospital, which had no stars last year, was celebrating after the Healthcare Commission awarded the trust one star.

Nick Samuels, director of communications, said the trust was very pleased to be back on track. "We came extremely close to the two-star standard," he said.

"We are very pleased with the progress we are making, for example just three years ago only 45 per cent of A&E cases were seen within four hours and now we are hitting 98 per cent."

Two years ago, the trust was awarded one star only to drop back to zero stars last year mainly because of poor financial performance.

Mr Samuels added: "We are very pleased to be back on track and on the way to providing the people of Enfield and Barnet with a hospital of which they can be very proud."