Parliamentary correspondent Bill Jacobs reckons Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt could be in line for the sack.

He says many at Westminster were stunned when she kept her job in the last Cabinet reshuffle. And as the NHS lurches from crisis to crisis, they will be amazed if she keeps it much longer.

Angry NHS staff at Addenbrooke’s hospital have already threatened to strike to save services following the announcement of £28 million cutbacks to their budget. I doubt this will make a jot of difference to Hewitt and will bring further chaos to our health services if it happens.

Doctors and nurses’ jobs are also to be axed at nearby Hinchingbrooke Hospital at Huntingdon, it is predicted that more than 200 jobs there are threatened. At the same time, the hospital has infuriated staff by spending £250,000 on consultants fees to find out how to save money – talk about adding salt to an open wound.

Outraged protesters have already taken to the streets in protest at proposed cuts in Cambridge. But remember, things have never been better.

As Bill says in the local rag (no web link available): “The financial meltdown of hospital, primary and community care services in Cambrigeshire is just one symptom of a nationwide disease which is eating away at what was once seen as the jewel in Britain’s welfare state crown.

“The announcement of plans to spend £250,000 on consultants to save cash at Hinchingbrooke, which is making 200 staff redundant, is typic of her (Hewitt) idea of how to cure the problem. The only consultants she ever asks to diagnose the illness and prescribe the answer are accountants – never the medical ones who might know what they are talking about.”

So who will be first to join Charles Clarke on the back benchers – Prescott or Hewitt? It should be Hewitt because her bungled mismanagement will directly affect us all and she has alientated herself from everyone connected with the NHS and morale is at an all time low.

Remember, don’t move to Cambridge if you have an illness, GPs have been told to cut back on their referrals to Addenbrooke’s.