Targets hit the mark

Health minister Rosie Winterton insisted that mental health had
been one of Labour’s top three priorities. At an event organised by
charity Rethink, Winterton said she hoped the targets had been
“more help than hindrance”.

Winterton said targets were needed to focus people’s attention and
after years of underinvestment there had been a revolution in the
way care is delivered.

But Cliff Prior, chief executive of Rethink, argued that targets
meant “you would more or less get at least some of what you
targeted, but at the expense of what you didn’t target”.