The trouble with the NHS’s working week

If you like your literature gloomy, then, at first, there may not be much to interest you in the latest Dr Foster Hospital Guide. A double-page diagram, across pages 10 and 11, is mostly about the positive trends of the past ten years: declining mortality rates and waiting times, that sort of thing. The only particularly sour note sounds out from the timeline at the bottom of the spread, which notes the creation of that big, galumphing NHS computer system in 2002, and then its abolition this year for not ‘achieving objectives’.  

But keep pressing on, because there is much to be concerned about in the pages that follow — particularly in the second chapter, entitled ‘Reducing mortality at nights and weekends’. In fact, that chapter is so concerning that the Telegraph have splashed on it this morning, and it was discussed in the 0810 slot on the Today Programme.