Outgoing NHS chief criticises culture of prioritising targets over patient care

National Health Service (NHS) bosses are continuing to put targets ahead of patient safety, an outgoing hospital chief executive has stated.

Writing to his constituency MP as he announced his retirement from the United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust, David Bowles argued that many local trusts are failing to learn the lessons of the Mid Staffordshire hospital scandal, where death rates were found to be much higher than should be expected.

He explained in his letter to MP Mark Simmonds that he stepped down after pressure was placed on him to ensure that an 18-week target for treating all patients was met, a target he felt was unattainable given the added pressures placed on the system by emergency care.

He wrote: "I refuse to work in a system that seems not to have learnt the lessons of Mid Staffordshire and to have lost sight of the critical issues of patient safety.

"A system that places unacceptable pressures on the trust, to give an unequivocal assurance that it will meet its 18 week non-emergency care target at a time of unprecedented levels of emergency demand."

Meanwhile, a third inquiry into the failings of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, where as many as 1,200 people are believed to have died as a result of failings in urgent care, was recently announced.

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