Emergency targets ditched in favour of performance measures

I can’t tell you what music it is to my ears that finally some of the most stupid performance targets are being scrapped in the UK Natinal Health Service. I have advised the government on this for such a long time and written about it in my book ‘Managing and Delivering Performance – How government, public sector and not-for-profit organizations can measure and manage what really matters’ and I had already given up hope that it would ever happen.

Great news is that is now has happened and the government has announced today that targets like the four-hour waiting time target in accident and emergency departments and the 19 minute category B response time target for ambulances are to be replaced with a set of “clinical quality indicators” that aim to give a better picture of patient experience. So the focus now is on outcome measures instead of process targets.

From April 2011 providers of emergency services will have to measure performance against eight new indicators but will not be judged against a set of targets. The indicators are:

Percentage of A&E attendances for cellulitis and deep vein thrombosis that end in admission

Unplanned re-attendance at A&E within 7 days of original attendance, including if referred back by another health professional

The percentage of people who leave the A&E department without being seen

Total time spent in the A&E department

Time from arrival to start of full initial assessment

Time from arrival to start of definitive treatment from a decision-making clinician

Percentage of patients presenting at type 1 and 2 A&E departments in certain high-risk patient who are reviewed by an emergency medicine consultant before being discharged.

Qualitative description of what has been done to assess the experience of patients using A&E services, their carers and staff.

What’s more and something I have again argued for is that provides are free to develop their own way of assessing qualitative experience. This is hopefully a big leap into the right direction to make the management of performance relevant and meaningful…