Clegg calls for an end to Labour's frenzied target-setting (South Tyneside and Jarrow Liberal Democrats)

South Tyneside and Jarrow Liberal Democrats <susan.troupe@blueyonder.co.uk>

Clegg calls for an end to Labour's frenzied target-setting

March 20, 2009 12:11 PM
Originally published by UK Liberal Democrats

Nick Clegg highlights the damage caused by Government targets at a Staffordshire hospital

On Wednesday, Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg, pressed the Prime Minister for an explanation for a Staffordshire hospital's substandard emergency care.

After claims that around 400 more people died between 2005 and 2008 than would have been expected, Nick criticised Government targets as having a negative impact on the NHS. He referred to an NHS watchdog report that claimed managers pursued targets set by the Government at the expense of patient care.

Nick labelled the Government's response to the revelations in Staffordshire as insufficient and called instead for the abolishment of these targets and a return to focusing on looking after the desperately ill.

Read the full exchange below

Mr. Nick Clegg (Sheffield, Hallam) (LD): I would like to add my own expressions of sympathy and condolence to the family and friends of the three soldiers who tragically lost their lives in Afghanistan in the last week. With the death toll among our brave servicemen and women now at more than 150, it is right that we should pause to reflect on the immense sacrifice that they and their families have had to endure in serving this country and, of course, the people of Afghanistan.

Does the Prime Minister believe that the culture of frenzied target setting that has been introduced into the NHS by his Government had any role to play whatsoever in the horrific events that occurred at Stafford general hospital?

The Prime Minister: May I and Health Secretary first say that we apologise to those people who have suffered as a result of the mistakes that have been made at Stafford hospital? Everybody who uses the national health service has a right, if they put their faith in the NHS at that hospital, to expect the highest standards of treatment. These were not the highest standards of treatment. They have now been investigated, and they fell far short of the standards that people expect. The first thing that we have to do is to assure the families of those who have suffered and relatives who are grieving and who want answers to their questions that there will be independent reviews, if they seek them, of their families' case notes so that they can be assured of what has happened. That is the first thing that we will do.

The second thing that we have to look at is whether this is a generic problem or a problem at a specific hospital. I am assured by the Healthcare Commission-the chief executive has made a statement today-that there is no equivalent case in all the other NHS hospitals across the country. We should therefore focus on the individual mistakes that were made by management and deal with them. A further inquiry is going on to look at what happened between 2003 and 2005. At the same time, the Care Quality Commission is looking into what lessons we can learn in general from what happened.

Mr. Clegg: When doctors at that hospital have confirmed that they were instructed by their managers to abandon seriously ill patients and to treat people with minor ailments instead in order to meet the Prime Minister's targets, it is not enough to talk of reviews, inquiries and to blame other people. Will he scrap the mad targets that make hospitals tick boxes rather than look after the desperately ill?

The Prime Minister: Whatever happened in that hospital is unacceptable and should never be allowed to happen again. I too have looked at all the detail of the evidence in this report, which also says that nursing care standards were poor but that they were never discussed or identified as being poor, that results of patient surveys were available but were never reported to the board of management, and that, at the time of the C. difficile infection, nobody on the board or among the general public ever knew that the rate of infection had doubled. Those low standards of management in the hospital, therefore, must be dealt with by our review.