Why discredited watchdog, the CQC, will survive Usually the party's spokesmen are quick to comment on anything relating to the NHS, to emphasise the party's commitment to the state-run provision of health care. The response to last week's events was muted. The scandal creates a dilemma for Labour as it attempts to finalise its policy on the NHS in England ahead of the next election. The CQC was designed to bring together all health and social care inspection and regulation under one organisation's roof. Mr Burnham wants to replicate this approach elsewhere, by combining control of all budgets for health and social care. But the CQC - the trailblazer for this model - has just been exposed as a colossal failure. How can the Care Quality Commission possibly survive? The abject failure of the CQC, exposed last week in The Daily Telegraph, and the way in which it attempted to suppress and destroy evidence, should put its survival in doubt. The body responsible for protecting the public and maintaining standards has been revealed to have been incompetent and corrupt. But this is the NHS, where different rules apply. The Government would rather avoid another overhaul unless the pressure becomes irresistible. Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, is appalled by the revelation but, as it stands, ministers are hoping that the quango being under new management will be enough to deal with concerns. Indeed, the Government was well aware last year that the CQC had significant shortcomings. A five-month review led by the Permanent Secretary of the Department of Health uncovered a litany of failings and endemic mismanagement. However, even the new management seems to have its head in the sand. It is only weeks since its new chief executive was threatening to sue The Daily Telegraph for reporting failures by its former team of executives, on whom he heaped praise. Last week, the Commission even redacted the names of its staff involved in the suppression of its botched investigation into Morecambe Bay hospitals. Erroneous data protection concerns were cited. They were then forced to publish the names. It hardly suggests an organisation on top of the vital task in hand. Isn't more fundamental health reform needed? Even if it is desperately needed, it isn't going to happen. Despite the recent scandals, including the report into up to 1,200 deaths at Mid Staffs, the Tory leadership found the experience of introducing the last tranche of reforms so bruising that it wants to avoid any repeat. Those mild attempts at making the NHS more responsive to market pressures - to drive competition, efficiency and improved care - had to be watered down. That has not prevented campaigners from claiming that the NHS has been privatised when it clearly has not been. The Government simply wants to get to the next election pointing out that, thanks to ring-fencing in the various spending rounds, the NHS now gets a much larger share of total government spending. Why is the Tory leadership so committed to the NHS? David Cameron's faith in it is often attributed to the excellent care that was provided for his disabled son Ivan. But Mr Cameron also genuinely believes that the proponents of radical schemes for reform are being unrealistic. He thinks the public's attachment to the NHS is an unarguable fact, and that he would prefer to introduce changes that do not conflict with its founding principles. And in one respect the Tories can say that the reforms introduced by the Coalition have made a positive difference. The Secretary of State for Health was removed from day-to-day responsibility for what happens in hospitals and quangos. The hope was that ministers would then be freed to be advocates for the patients rather than defenders of those who run the system. Tory MPs point out that Mr Hunt did exactly that last week in his criticism of the CQC.