Last week saw the latest episode in one of the longest running policy development sagas within NHS reform – the failure to create a failure regime for NHS hospitals.

This is a policy that has been much announced since the NHS plan in 2000. However little has been delivered in the 11 years since then. Three separate Governments have failed to create a failure regime. Each of them has recognised how important it would be to have one, yet each of them, as they come close to publishing one, has backed away.