Editorial Monday 15 July 2013: Back to the future with 'hit squads' for many Keogh troubled trusts: rewarding failure?

The Guardian's Denis Campbell and Patrick Wintour have a plausible-looking leak about the Keogh report tomorrow.

The five non-FTs will get a 'hit squad' parachuted in (could they not just get a taxi?), and six of the nine FTs listed will be put into special administration.

There won't be any immediate sackings of CEs.

One of the charming things about health policy is that if you stand in one place long enough, policies come round again.

Last week, we had charging health tourists for using the NHS. This week, it's 'hit squads' (last rhetorically deployed in 2012 for South London, but a pretty regular feature of the policy landscape).

Place your bets on whether next week will see them bringing back matron or franchising management of failing trusts (see 2008 and 2001).

A quick thought: The Guardian reports that this "move will allow Monitor to use its powers to oblige failing trusts to improve areas of their performance identified as sub-standard by the Keogh inquiry. The six will have to provide undertakings that they will address key inadequacies urgently, for example by commissioning a review of the problem from external consultants and then following its recommendations".

Mmmmm. Won't it be fascinating to see whether the external management consultancies chosen (Big Four, at a rough guess) have had any previous involvement with these failing group of trusts?

If that were so, this policy would seem awfully much like rewarding failure.