Each inspection will entail teams of inspectors examining care across a hospital's services and always in eight key areas, including A&E, maternity and paediatric units, care for the frail elderly and end of life care.The new approach, which will be backed up by Ofsted-style ratings for hospitals from January, could lead to units being judged "inadequate" and perhaps closed, Richards said.
They cannot address questions such as the protection of the frail, the quality of end-of-life care, and the fundamental issue of how life itself should be valued.
"GPs should take back 24-hour responsibility for the small number of patients who are at risk of being admitted to hospital fairly regularly, such as the frail elderly, patients at the end of their lives, people with certain mental health conditions and also patients about whom you as their GP have particular concerns", she says.
Given the findings of this review it would be difficult to argue that more shouldn't be done to understand and promote the wishes of the frail and older people towards the end of their life.
Even in the 1910s, the frail, bronchitic Laurence might well have ended his brief span as another infant statistic.
The new contract also aims to provide better care for people with early-stage cancer, for those at the end of their lives or the frail or elderly.
I've written for the Washington Post about difficult end-of-life issues in the frail elderly, but there are those whose mortal call comes much earlier in life.
It could rescue the NHS and roll out good community care, ending the shame of 15-minute visits to the frail by untrained, low-paid carers.
Fueling speculation that John Paul II might retire at the end of this year, a Belgian cardinal says he believes that the frail, ailing pope could do exactly that.
