The newest chief executive of the region's troubled mental health trust has dismissed calls for the organisation to be split in two.

The Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation has long faced suggestions it could better serve the region if it was disbanded and replaced with two new organisations for each county.

However, Caroline Donovan, the trust's fifth chief executive in as many years, has become the latest to dismiss these calls - in her first face-to-face interview with this newspaper since her appointment last year.

Ms Donovan, who succeeded Stuart Richardson in October, said she had seen "no evidence" that the trust should be disbanded - despite admitting its quality of care still needs to improve.

She said: "We have got to have localised leadership and there are difficulties which come with working collaboratively with two systems - but we can not be an island, which I think we have been guilty of in the past.

"I have seen no evidence that the trust should be split."

In her previous role, Ms Donovan was chief executive of another trust straddling two counties - the Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust - which recently saw its Care Quality Commission boosted to good.

She added: "In Lancashire and South Cumbria I saw similar challenges - the region has large rural areas and big pockets of deprivation.

"There the population is around 1.9m and we have around 1.6m between the counties here.

"I came in as CEO with a history of improving organisations and came in with my eyes wide open to the challenges NSFT faces, knowing the trust has been challenged for many years.

"I am really ambitious and I try to drive improvements but I am clear the organisation needs to stay as it is.

"There is no reason why we can not go on to become a good-rated trust but I know improvements need to be made."