YES, we know that is hardly the snappiest of headlines so let us start at the beginning.
In June, it was announced that Essex had been designated as a so-called ‘Success Regime’ by NHS England, Monitor and the NHS Trust Development Authority.
This "reflects the challenging circumstances affecting health and care in Essex, not least around the financial sustainability of arrangements for the commissioning and delivery of services, as well as the quality and performance of those services.
The aim of the regime is to provide additional support and direction to local health and care systems, and to identify and address systemic issues across the whole system, and to implement an improvement process.
Six months later, Thurrock Councillors quizzed the health bosses (The Thurrock Clinical Commissioning Group) as to what exactly was happening.
The general tone of the meeting was "Take us through the success bit" as they discovered that even after six months they had yet to appoint a Head of the Success Regime.
