ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how new managerialism incorporating performance management targets and bureaucracy were implicated in the emergence of poor care and neglect at Mid Staffordshire National Health Service (NHS) Trust and the development of Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) into an organised criminal activity. It examines the findings of the independent inquiry into CSE, commissioned by Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council, which demonstrated that the council knew that the children's services were failing and that CSE was a significant problem in the community. The chapter analyzes events at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust between 1993 and 2013, and outlines the political context in which NHS Trust foundation hospitals were created. During that time allegations emerged from patients, relatives and healthcare professionals that there were high death rates and neglect of patients at the hospital. As with Mid Staffordshire, performance management targets also featured in diverting the efforts of frontline professionals away from CSE to less consequential crimes such as burglary.
