targets

Nigel Hawkes :: Thu, 23/06/2011 - 14:05

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The perverse results of the 18-week wait

Sheila Bird :: Mon, 25/10/2010 - 13:02

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Please join the organ donor register: you could save a politician’s life

Sir Gordon Duff’s report on the UK’s organ donor debacle is clear and comprehensive, but characteristically generous in its conclusions.
 

Nigel Hawkes :: Thu, 02/09/2010 - 14:25

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Mixed record card for flagship mental health scheme

To the new health secretary, Andrew Lansley, target is a dirty word. He prefers outcome measures – actual results that show treatments are working.

Nigel Hawkes :: Tue, 10/08/2010 - 15:47

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How the overtreatment of diabetics may have cost lives

A brief period in which British family doctors were offered a financial inducement to treat diabetic patients more intensively could be coming to an end.
 

Sheila Bird :: Wed, 20/01/2010 - 10:53

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Nuff said? The Nuffield Trust on healthcare comparisons across the UK

Reservations on today’s report by Nuffield Trust which compares funding and healthcare performance across the UK centre on: Rurality (which not even comparison between Scotland and North East England redresses), Reporting standards, Right measures, Responsiveness, and Repeat attendances.

David Spiegelhalter :: Mon, 07/12/2009 - 18:42

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A statistical casualty?

Baroness Young has resigned as Chair of the Care Quality Commission (CQC) after reports of conflicts with Health Secretary Andy Burnham concerning procedures for monitoring the NHS.

Nigel Hawkes :: Wed, 18/11/2009 - 17:08

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Whiling away the hours in A&E

Want to know how long you’ll have to wait in your local A&E? The NHS Information centre today published a report that uses Hospital Episode Statistics to compare how different trusts perform.

Nigel Hawkes :: Wed, 14/10/2009 - 12:10

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Health inequalities narrow even as they widen

Latest data on mortality for common causes of death, published today, show progress on meeting most of the Department of Health mortality targets. But the way some of those targets were framed made success almost inevitable.

Leo Henghes :: Mon, 12/10/2009 - 10:47

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Sats tests give a false impression of educational progress

One in ten white boys is leaving school with fewer than five GCSEs, the benchmark for basic secondary school education, according to figures released by the Department for Children, Schools and Families in response to a Freedom of Information request.

Nigel Hawkes :: Tue, 14/07/2009 - 14:58

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Happy Hour in the A&E

Targets are usually well-meant. They're designed to inject a note of urgency into otherwise sluggish systems and raise productivity. But the outcome is seldom strictly what anybody intended.