Target failed? Let’s have more of them!
Civitas, 28 May 2009
Perhaps this blog is a bit of a cop-out. Yes, it’s not really a blog at all, suffice to refer you to this brilliant article by Nigel Hawkes, former health editor of The Times, in this week’s BMJ. An eloquent exposition of what this blog has argued time and time again when it comes to the NHS.
Here’s a extract to tempt you…
‘Meanwhile, the Mid Staffs shambles is being categorised as a freak event, unprecedented and never to be repeated… The NHS believes it can get away with categorising every failure as a freak and scapegoating the managers involved. Each time, new targets are set up. You can require people to meet goals—as John Kay remarked in the Financial Times apropos the financial crisis—but that is not the same as encouraging them to meet the obligations behind the goals. The more targets there are, the more managers become demotivated and the less they are able to focus on achieving these fundamental underlying goals.
At Mid Staffs, the targets that managers cared about were those needed to achieve foundation status. The result was neglect of some of the basic principles of health care. So what is the answer? More targets. This way madness lies.’