On the day when The PM assures the Commons that the targets are not getting in the way of successful nursing a prominent nurse resigns from the NHS because she cannot nurse as much as she wants. The reason she gives is she has to spend far too much of her time filling in forms and doing paperwork. A lot of the paperwork is necessary to collect figures for the targets.

Most private sector businesses use targets to help them run efficiently. These targets are few in number. They are specific to the people and the tasks concerned, or general but relate to the one or two most important things to ensure overall success. They are achievable but stretching, and can be hit if the people concerned do the right thing. They are often used as the basis for incentive pay. No well run business sets dozens of targets, and allows targets through which may be contradictory or difficult to reconcile.

The NHS suffers from too many targets, from too much monitoring of these targets, and from too little acceptance of the targets by the staff. If the staff think the targets are the problem, and are not motivated to hit them,. then the targets are the problem.

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