Common sense... 1 Theorists... 0

The announcement today of changes to the NHS Operating Framework including the scrapping or softening of many targets has breathed new hope into the clinical body, an organism that has been sorely tried by the last decade of over-management. Told time and again that we were not trusted to deliver a fair and efficient service by the then government such that we needed the yoke of these targets in order to perform, the resentment has grown and grown. As much time was given to ways of circumventing the more ridiculous diktats as was given over to useful innovation with the public purse the inevitable loser. Clinicians were left to battle with the unforeseen consequences of the targets and then blamed for them too.
Whilst the patients' views are clearly valuable to any health planning exercise they lack both the knowledge and the detachment to be able to offer the final say, whereas the clinicians that work day in, day out at the medical coalface understand the issues, the strengths and limitations of the service and - contrary to New Labour's rhetoric - care deeply about the people they serve. There are rotten apples in any basket, but not many in this one.
So now, rather than introducing a headline-grabbing target of 4-hour A&E waiting time and not know, care or worry about the patients who were unnecessarily moved onto an inappropriate ward to avoid breaching the target, now we can concentrate on making parameters that are meaningful, achievable yet challenging and above all, practical.
Move over theorists, common sense has arrived.