The investigation into the Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust makes for harrowing reading. The mortality rate at the hospital was found to be high in patients admitted as an emergency. The first data that showed an increase in the standardised mortality ratio was in 2005. The Healthcare Commission investigation was done during last year, 2008, and is reporting now, 2009. It can be difficult and labour-intensive to interpret statistics correctly. But it is not helped if the length of time it takes to analyse the numbers approaches the life of some health policies.

The report highlights what can happen when fulfilling targets becomes the chosen marker of quality. The target of no more than a “four-hour wait” in A+E led to unsafe practices, such as triage in A+E being done by a receptionist. Similarly, money was saved by getting rid of the hospitals’ clinical staff, as highlighted in the report. The irony is that it’s not difficult to envisage situations where receptionists could be given some training, welcomed as “clinical partners” in “skill mix”, and the system declared innovative and cutting-edge. But these kinds of terms are used to make cost-savings sound palatable: the training for being able to triage is better given via nursing or medical school. Meanwhile, Mid Staffordshire was given Foundation Trust status, and “focused on promoting itself as an organisation, with considerable attention given to marketing and public relations”.

Yet the Government is reluctant to admit that the target culture will not sort out all the NHS’s problems. Nor will shiny PR polish resolve understaffing and overstretching. Should we not just ditch ineffective policies, base healthcare policy on evidence, and move on?