BMJ  2008;336 (24 May), doi:10.1136/bmj.39588.493449.47

Editor's Choice

Reds

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

I’d like a pound for every new idea that’s been rolled up into Lord Darzi’s NHS review. Hardly a week goes by without the addition of another one. Last week there were two: expanding the programme that has patients evaluating their own treatment, followed the next day by a proposal to use these evaluations to adjust the prices paid to hospitals. (Darzi’s review was "not about changing the way the NHS is funded or structured," you may recall.) IT professionals call this proliferation of objectives "scope creep," and it’s the commonest reason why IT projects crash and burn.

Whitehall watchers say that paralysis has gripped the Department of Health ever since Lord Darzi embarked on his review. Anything other than strictly normal business has been put on hold, pending the publication of his report. Maybe that partly explains the government’s assessment of the Department of Health as the second worst . . . [Full text of this article]

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