Published 3 July 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b2706
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;339:b2706

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MPs attack NHS for putting finances and targets ahead of patient safety

¹ London

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

MPs have warned that England’s current patient safety policy has important failings. The government needs to act urgently to ensure that cases of bad care, such as happened at Mid-Staffordshire Foundation NHS Trust (BMJ 2009;338:b1141, doi:10.1136/bmj.b1141), are not repeated, they have said.

The health select committee’s report on patient safety says that incidents are under-reported, largely because of the NHS’s persistent failure to eliminate the "blame culture." It says that the government remains largely unsupportive of whistleblowers and that the Department of Health needs to improve this situation.

The committee acknowledged that the government has undertaken a number of important steps to tackle safety, such as creating the National Patient Safety Agency. But it said that too often NHS boards pay more attention to governance, finances, and targets than to putting the safety of patients first.

The committee’s chairman, Kevin Barron, said, "Our report highlights many areas . . . [Full text of this article]

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