Sunday 30 March 2008

Healthy progress?

In what exam is a 93% score regarded as a failure? Yet this is how the BBC reported the news that the government's sensible decision to order a deep clean of our hospitals has led to 93% of hospitals being fully cleaned, with a 35% reduction in MRSA over a year. The point about targets is that they should be challenging: it is far better to get 93% on a tough target than 100% on an easy one. And this is one area where the government was right to respond - despite suggestions from shadow health secretary for life Andrew Lansley that it is no business of government to do so. After all, were not 'cleaner hospitals' one of the main planks on which the Tories fought (and, admittedly, lost) the last election? Turns out that the Tories, whose health policy is now written in BMA headquarters, are no longer thinking what we are thinking about this issue.

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