PERHAPS Katrina Percy, the embattled chief executive of Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust, thinks that if she keeps her head down long enough her critics will go away. She is mistaken. The calls for her resignation are widespread and overwhelming because she has singularly and clearly failed in her role.

Yet another report has highlighted the failings at Southern Health which runs, among many others, the hospitals at Melbury Lodge and Leigh House adolescent unit on Alresford Road.

Initial official criticism last year stemmed from the its failure to properly investigate more than 1,000 unexpected deaths of people in its care.

Now the latest CQC report has highlighted the trust’s chronic inability to sort itself out.

The chairman, Mike Petter, bowed to the inevitable last week by resigning. It was the right, if belated, thing to do.

But still Ms Percy clings on. In 2012 she was hailed in the Health Service Journal awards as chief executive of the year for her ability to let her managers manage. Here lies the root of the problem, an ill-suited management style.

She is handsomely paid to do an important job. With that remuneration comes responsibility. Is the Chronicle being old-fashioned when it suggests that with that responsibility comes the recognition that the buck has to stop somewhere?