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The news that Addenbrooke's has been put into 'special measures' by the CQC is the lead story across the news media this morning.
The Trust have had problems with recruiting staff, they have suffered from Social Service cuts, making it impossible to discharge patients safely and they are running out of money.
The best solution we have is to send in the clod-hopping CQC, spend nearly a million pounds 'inspecting' and pronounce them 'failing'. This unwarranted epithet will make it even more difficult to recruit, will not solve any discharge difficulties and demoralise and already bewildered staff.
As far as I can see the Trust have good outcomes, low infection rates and the staff, exhausted by the effort, are dumb-stuck that all this has conspired to end with the chief executive walking away.
An enthusiastic group of consultant backed staff have pleaded with him to stay. The Board have been all but silent.
These events bring into sharp focus the contagion spreading through the NHS.
Today's eletter is a postcard; there are no words for me that can better describe this predicament than this BBC Cambridge interview with the outgoing chief executive. (Link below)
Please find a moment in your busy day to have a look and you be the judge of the man, his approach and the extent to which the NHS has, today, driven out a class-act.
Something like two thirds of Trusts can't balance their books, half have problems with the CQC and around a third have no permanent chief executive.
It's time for Whitehall to wake up. Is it an exaggeration to claim the NHS is crumbling? Is it true to say the Tinker-Man has no answers. Is it right to point out we are regulating the health service into a cul-de-sac?
You be the judge.
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