Seems an enormously inappropriate juxtaposition of words doesn't it, NHS and Trust? We are continually getting headlines about some scandal or other within its ridiculously hallowed walls, usually involving unnecessary deaths, but a couple of things remain a constant.

Firstly there is the mystifying protection for those who are quite clearly responsible and secondly the absence of investigation into root causes. On the first point, we do have to ask why Health professionals are so protected? A nurse who highlights failings in a hospital is sacked and struck off the nursing register with a speed that is breathtaking. (Naturally, the failings are then quietly covered up and forgotten).

But if a hospital is adhering to standards of care that would have made the Scutari wards in the Crimea seem paragons of care and cleanliness, then no action is taken, no one cares and the only scramble is to find a way to make you forget or distract your attention.

Secondly, it is all too apparent that our hospitals are not just badly run by the legions of bureaucrats New Labour felt was what was needed in a modern health service, but that clinical decisions and standards have also vanished. It is as if all the doctors we used to be able to rely on were kidnapped one night and replaced by useless idiots.

Now New Labour couldn't be trusted to watch your pint while you went for a wee, but even I don't think they did the above. Introduced lower standards very probably and undermined good practice, but were not actually responsible for the high levels of ineptitude now apparent in the NHS.

Why, when my mother presented with strange symptoms, involving restricted movement, did the system decide it must be cancer and no other specialist should see her? So, having wasted 9 months in fruitless investigations she was passed to neurology who immediately correctly diagnosed her. The window for treatment had been missed, but worse than that she had spent 9 months in the NHS system, in their 'care'.

What this means in reality is the local hospital/care home allowed her to come to further harm and were negligent in regard to her welfare to the extent that she eventually had to be admitted to a general hospital due to dehydration. Of course, whilst there she acquired an infection which killed her. And naturally the death certificate didn't call it MRSA as that would have affected the statistics - that most important aspect of NHS operation.

So, the hospital would not admit to causing her death or even the real cause, meaning that she just died. Nothing untoward and not likely to appear as one of the unnecessary deaths. On a chart of statistics.

The system  is falling apart and I don't know why. It would seem that a series of unintended consequences may have brought us to a situation where doctors no longer seem to understand the basic remit of their role. This will extend to allowing poor students to progress into the ranks and nurses to walk away from their everyday role, without criticism.

The squalor in wards went on for months if not longer. How come no one noticed apparently, no one thought it wrong? The way it is reported it is as if a patient left in their own mess, or without food and water was a complete shock to the nurses who 'worked' on the ward. It also shows how completely disconnected the management was from the very job they were employed to fulfil. And how will it ever get cleared up, as the politicians seem very reluctant to act.

In a hospital that killed thousands how come no one is held responsible, let alone charged? This is the place to start. As with secret courts, when the medical profession is never held to account no matter how outrageous their behaviour, standards will fall to the floor. The same is true of our armed police, who operate to poor standards and are never blamed for stupid actions.

Maybe the reluctance of politicians to act is a recognition of truth; that they in all conscience cannot act against bad management and criminal behaviour in the NHS and other state institutions, because they themselves are no better. Perhaps that is where we need to start.