Perverse process is caused by policy
In The Guardian: Dr Lansley’s prescription can only induce more perversity, comes: No business is immune from the perverse incentive. People will always find a way to work around financial incentives, and processes will evolve that look, well, perverse, until they’re traced back to the policy that created them. This goes further because it is [...]
NHS readmission policy is sticking plaster on a bad system
The Health Secretary Andrew Lansley, announced yesterday that hospital trusts will not be paid for the second visit if they discharge a patient who returns within 30 days. This is to discourage trusts from discharging patients too early to try and save money. There are problems with this. Firstly, there is a report from the [...]
Rewards will worsen attendance
North Lincolnshire Council is to consider rewarding staff for good attendance and it won’t help a bit. In fact it will make things worse. If you read the agenda for the 9th June 2010 cabinet that will be held this coming Wednesday, you will see it is full of things like “implement check list”, “targets [...]
Welsh Ambulance Response Rates Show No Improvement
It is reported by the BBC that the Welsh Ambulance Service has improved its response times for Category A emergency calls. These calls are targeted to have an ambulance arrive within 8 minutes 65% of the time. The BBC article states that the percentage has been above 65% for the last three months and that [...]
Ambulances no longer sent to all seriously ill patients
The obvious angle for comment on the recent Daily Telegraph story, ‘Ambulances no longer sent to all seriously ill patients’ is that targets are damaging patient care and causing ambulance services to cut corners by sending paramedic cars to patients who really need an ambulance. But this has been covered in previous posts and actually the more interesting point is hidden near the end of the article.
No such thing as a justified target
No Justified Targets Before the election in May, the three health spokesmen for the major parties debated on television. Obviously the question of targets came up and Andrew Lansley said he would scrap “politically motivated” NHS targets but keep those that were “clinically justified”. The problem is that there is no such thing as a [...]
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