College President Professor David Galloway called on the NHS to target priority patients rather than prioritising targets, in an article in today’s Scotsman.
Writing in the newspaper, Professor Galloway said:
“Once again staff from across Scotland’s NHS have dealt with the almost unprecedented pressure of this winter’s crisis with the professionalism and kindness for which they are renowned. But many of us fear that it’s sometimes only the goodwill and dedication of staff which allows the service to continue at all during these challenging periods.
“It’s increasingly clear to me that rather than fuelling a political argument about numerical targets, we must now focus our public debate on the much more important objective of achieving the best patient outcomes.
“The fundamental focus of the NHS must be to target priority patients rather than prioritising performance targets.”