Mum Ellie with baby Zac

Inspectors at the Care Quality Commission gave the Whittington Hospital maternity unit a “requires improvement” rating earlier this year.

But new parents Ellie Harries and Harry Robbins beg to differ. The couple’s son Zac was born last month at the Highgate hospital and they wanted to give staff a boost.

Ellie, who grew up in Camden and now lives in Haringey, told me: “We understand that the maternity unit has just received a ‘needs improvement’ review. However, our experience was excellent.

“I had a high-risk pregnancy and was closely monitored with weekly trips to triage, reviews by consultants and support from a range of midwives and support workers.

“We found staff at all levels to be conscientious, skilled and well-informed.

“I felt very well looked after and was surprised to see the CQC rating. We’d like to thank everyone who looked after us at the Whittington and supported us to have a healthy beautiful baby.”

There are thousands of news stories online with headlines about terrible ratings branded on NHS trusts by the CQC.

But few, if any, can be found about the publicly funded quango itself – in which we are invited to base our trust and boasts on its board Tony Blair’s former health policy advisor, a senior partner at McKinsey and Co and a top boss at PriceWaterHouseCooper.

Speak to anyone in NHS management and they will tell you they consider these CQC inspections to be a complete waste of time, often undermining sound leadership, interrupting healthcare delivery, and effectively holding organisations to ransom.

The inspections are supposed to ensure providers such as hospitals, dental practices, ambulances and care homes are complying with a list of essential standards at the moment of inspection.

But this has over the years ingrained a kind of tick-box culture. A bit like a student learning facts by rote, a trust’s future status hinges on whether evidence can be produced at the point of inspection.

A small backroom industry is required for trusts to comply with these standards that are mainly bureaucratic.

If you read the actual CQC report about the Whittington you will find the reasons behind its allegations of safety failings hard to comprehend.

It actually heaps praise on the maternity unit staff who are respected by managers – a rarity in the NHS – and a strong focus on the needs of women, cleaning and infection control.

The Whittington’s chief executive Helen Brown has challenged the rating while saying there was much in the report to be proud of.

The CQC system has not prevented the terrible outrages at Mid Staffs, Winterbourne View and – more closer to home – the scandal at the “excellent”-rated Ash Court is Kentish Town, where an 81-year-old woman with Alzheimer’s was physically assaulted by a male carer and mistreated by four others.

The problems that exist in the health and care service stem from a chronic lack of underfunding and a fragmented system divided by competition and privatisation. It’s this government that “requires improvement”, not our NHS.