> Politicians would like a 2 hour target, they wouldn't like tax rises.
[Matt Dunn]
Wrong, it's the general public who wouldn't like tax rises. I can't bear the
way the media (e.g. Panorama) vilify the present government for "fiddling"
figures (i.e. rather than dealing with the problems head on, by investing
more resources). The government are tied to a public mandate which caps
taxes at present rates; how else do you expect them to behave? And I can't
bear the indignant "public" either, who whinge and moan about the state of
the health service. They've had numerous opportunities to elect tax-raising
governments over the last 25 years, but on each occasion they've gone for
the cheap option, and voted to hang on to their pennies. Yet they have the
gall to complain when the NHS isn't up to scratch. They can't have it both
ways...
> there has been a recognition that to decrease time further would be
detrimental to the care of many patients [Rowley]
I agree. We're just about managing four hours now, but many patients I see
are around 3 to 3.5 hours! To drop the target now to 2 hours would move our
performance back down to around 60% in one fell swoop! No, I believe we've
got to look at real "quality" from now on rather than further time
pressures, although how we measure this will be a major challenge for our
specialty.
Adrian Fogarty
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