NHS target “regime” slammed by opposition

The shadow health minister, Stephen O’Brien, has attacked the system of NHS targets designed to measure performance and introduced by the Labour government.

Mr O’Brien’s comments came in response to health secretary Patricia Hewitt’s appearance at the Unison trade union conference where she was heckled by sections of the crowd, some of whom displayed placards with slogans such as “Sack Blair, not health workers”.

On Channel 4 News, Mr O’Brien described the NHS as an enormous bureaucracy that is inspired only by the government’s “target regime” obsession to deliver headlines.

Liberal Democrat health spokesman Steve Webb told the same programme: “Yes, there are very good things happening everyday in the NHS but there are also real pressure points and crises. Front line staff are being sacked and people are wondering where the money has gone.”

Ms Hewitt told the conference that she admitted it was a “challenging time”, and said: “I know of the concerns, the anxiety even the anger that some of you feel. I want to hear about that directly from you.” She added that some redundancies will be necessary, but that in some cases only because some hospitals have not been managed efficiently.

She concluded by saying that this fortunately happened rarely and that in such cases, workers should receive an apology.

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