Targets ARE a problem...

When it emerged that up to 1,200 people might have died needlessly at Stafford Hospital due to “third world” standards the Healthcare Commission said an obsession with targets was a key problem.

The Government argued the failure was a one-off and entirely the fault of the Mid-Staffs trust’s management team.

But David Bowles, the chair of United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust who resigned recently, isn’t so sure.

This is what he said on stepping down.

“I refuse to work in a system which seems not to have learnt the lessons of Mid Staffordshire and to have lost sight of the critical issues of patient safety; a system which places unacceptable pressures on the Trust…

…Furthermore, mindful of patients and my personal responsibilities for safety, I can not continue to be involved in the NHS where it seems to me that bullying from outside of the Trust is simply met with a shrug of the shoulders and ‘well that’s the NHS’.”

It makes you wonder how many more Staffords there are waiting to happen.