Are budgets and targets compromising patient care?

Readers cannot have failed to have heard or seen some of the press relating to Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust in recent weeks. In March the Healthcare Commission (HCC) (2009a) published a report that found that this trust was responsible for significant failings across emergency health care, leadership and management. The shocking details reported are a clear indication of what can happen when trusts cut staffing numbers, fail to provide leadership and implement cost-saving measures rather than delivering quality patient care. In this trust clear barriers were in place that prevented quality care taking place and, although the nurses working in the trust had raised their concerns with management, both formally and informally, their concerns were never addressed.