A health boss admitted he knew there were serious problems on a hospital ward for the elderly eight months before a BBC television documentary exposed them.

Managers said they were aware of rising numbers of complaints about the quality of care and leadership on the ward at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton and the number of incidents involving elderly patients falling over, medication errors and other serious failings.

The admission was made yesterday at a meeting of a special scrutiny panel, set up in the wake of the shock findings made by the BBC Panorama programme screened in July.

Critics questioned how and why the hospital was allowed to deteriorate to such appalling conditions if managers were already aware there were problems.

The hospital trust was also accused of blaming its failings on old wards rather than poor practice.

Panorama: Undercover Nurse exposed appalling conditions and standards of care on the Peel and Stewart ward, a 27-bed acute medical ward located in the oldest part of the county hospital.

The programme featured harrowing scenes of elderly patients sitting in their own filth and lying in agony. The grim footage was recorded by an undercover nurse who catalogued a diary of mistreatment of acutely ill and frail patients.

Peter Coles, chief executive of the Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals Trust, told a meeting of the overview health scrutiny panel at Hove Town Hall last night that the trust was aware of problems and had begun to deal with them.

He told the meeting which was attended by about 20 members of the public: "The first thing to say is how sorry I am and we are as a trust that our services for elderly people were shown in such a terrible light.

"We were all devastated to see the footage before the programme went out and to see the programme itself. The public reaction that followed was the most difficult experience in my 22 years in the NHS."

"The approach we've taken is to admit the programme showed unacceptable care standards and not to seek justification for that.

"What we did point out to Panorama was that the footage dated back to Christmas and we had picked up the problems ourselves but that does not excuse what was shown."

Councillor Simon Williams asked: "My nagging concern is that we heard you identified the problems, you were taking measures to remedy them but how did we get to the situation and why did we have to rely on Panorama to reveal the problems."

Mr Coles replied: "As we said during the presentation it did not take Panorama to come and do the programme before we were aware of the problems."

Councillor Dawn Barnett gained repeated applause with a barrage of questions about poor levels of cleanliness, food standards and the elderly failing to receive better treatment.

She said: "You make a lot of emphasis on the building being old but old can still be clean."