Category: 13. Targets

NHS targets have had their day

Lord Prior of Brampton is reported by The Times as saying: “NHS staff suffer from learned helplessness in a dysfunctional system” So what prompted this mystifying statement? A&E units are currently reporting their worst numbers of patients waiting longer than four hours, many on trolleys as no beds were available – the NHS Confederation of …

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Target setting

Targets are needed to bring meaning to any performance measure They enable one to quantify scope for improvement, performance gaps to be closed and urgency for change Told your ‘bad’ cholesterol level is 8.6 and most would ask ‘so what?’ – told that good health requires the level to be below 5 and a course …

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Run hospitals like Tesco stores

David Dalton is CEO of Salford Royal NHS foundation trust, the first to be rated as ‘outstanding’ by the CQC (Care Quality Commission) on two consecutive occasions, so his words carry considerable weight He has just posted an article in the Thunderer column of The Times which is a cause for alarm to many Why? …

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FDI boosts productivity of UK firms

According to the ONS – the UK’s Office for National Statistics – UK companies that get foreign investment are twice as productive as other firms FDI – Foreign Direct Investment – comprises not just foreign cash injections but also foreign best practices and foreign management One has only to consider the success of foreign car-makers …

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Human targets are best

In his book ‘Happiness’, Richard Layard points out that: ” People care most about their income relative to that of other people” i.e. more than the total itself He says most people would even be willing to accept a significant fall in their living standards as long as they could move up compared to other …

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