Published 30 June 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b2660
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b2660

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Patients’ safety must not be sacrificed to financial targets, doctors say

Andrew Cole

1 Liverpool

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

The government’s obsession with targets means that tragedies such as the deaths of patients at the Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust (BMJ 2009;338:b1141, doi:10.1136/bmj.b1141) could be repeated in other parts of the country, doctors warned at the BMA’s annual representatives meeting on Monday.

"Mid-Staffs is not an isolated incident," said one delegate, Mary McCarthy from South Staffordshire local medical committee. "It has the potential to happen in any other area." She said that the concentration on targets had distorted clinical care at the Mid-Staffordshire trust and that difficulties in the area could grow, because the number of elderly people requiring hospitalisation was rising.

Delegates backed a motion insisting that quality of care and the safety of patients must take priority over financial and other targets. And the motion called on primary care organisations and other providers to collate and share concerns raised by clinicians about quality of care.

. . . [Full text of this article]


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