Simon Caulkin: Targets can seriously damage your health - The Observer 4th November 2007

First there were the truly gruesome events at Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells hospitals where, according to an official report, at least 90 patients died of the superbug Clostridium difficile because of deficiencies in the cleaning regime. Second was the strange embarrassment of the Surrey police chief at his force's top place in the performance league tables - an achievement, he confessed, that was undeserved. Third, the saga of the National Treatment Agency, which has been rewarding drug addicts who present clean urine samples with bonus drugs, and which last week revealed that a £130m budget increase had resulted in just 70 extra patients kicking the habit.

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