10-04-2005, 12:09 AM
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#1 (permalink)
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Administrator
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Long Ashton, Bristol
Posts: 10,199
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No 10 puts NHS targets before the safety of patients
Telegraph
Quote:
An investigation by The Telegraph today lays bare how the health of hospital patients up and down the country is put at risk by direct Downing Street interference in the NHS and Labour's obsession with targets.
Emails and internal NHS documents illustrate how Accident & Emergency patients are pushed aside and placed in danger so that hospitals can meet No 10's diktats on waiting times.
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One doctor described this intervention as "dangerous and intolerable". She added: "It is only a matter of time before someone dies."
Another deplored the decision to move patients out of an emergency department because of a losing battle to treat patients within the Government's target time of four hours. "This constitutes a serious clinical risk," he said.
The investigation leads directly to Tony Blair's most senior advisers inside No 10. It shows how Michael Barber, the head of the Downing Street Delivery Unit, has taken charge of enforcing the four-hour waiting time target for casualty departments. At present hospitals must deal with 98 per cent of emergency patients within that time.
Hospitals struggling to meet the target, including the Epsom and St Helier NHS Trust, are forced to make lengthy and detailed "presentations" to Mr Barber and his Whitehall unit on what they are doing to achieve the goal. This was confirmed by documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
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