Do bureaucrats dream of fully-filled tickboxes?*

Seriously, are there readable studies out there which chronicle the mindset of the governmentalist bureaucrat? No doubt those Americans waiting for free healthcare would say, "Can't happen here". Something a little closer to the mark of reality:

"Dreadful, neglectful, demeaning, painful and sometimes downright cruel." Those are the words used by Claire Rayner, herself a former nurse, to describe the way many nurses today treat elderly patients. Introducing a report by the Patients Association last week, she described shocking standards of nursing care in hospitals up and down the country.

The stories are horrifying — old people neglected, lying in their own faeces and urine, hungry, thirsty and afraid, while nurses chat callously at the nursing station, indifferent to the suffering around them.

Since the report was published the Patients Association has been flooded with hundreds of calls of support. "I am sickened," Rayner said, "by what has happened to some parts of my profession, of which I was so proud." One can only agree

At what point do anecdotes evolve into data?

*With apologies to Philip K. Dick