NHS managers 'doomed to failure'
According to a report published this week by an influential think tank, NHS managers are doomed to failure as the health service is "following every known rule that guarantees failure in the business world".
Report authors, James Gubb, director of the health unit at Civitas, and Peter Davies, a GP in Yorkshire, compare the NHS's performance against 'The Ten Commandments of Business Failure' by former Coca-Cola chief executive Donal R Keough, and found that the NHS was wanting in every department.
The commandments of failure outline how businesses will fail if they stop taking risks, are inflexible, and assume infallibility, among others.
In the report, Putting Patients Last: How the NHS keeps the ten commandments of business failure, they accuse the NHS of being isolated, risk-averse, and conforming to government initiatives rather than focusing on high-quality care for patients.
A blind faith in structure and satisfying government has made the NHS immune to what is happening on the ground, say the authors, who warned that management skills would need to improve if the NHS is to be pulled out of the recession.
According to think tanks the King's Fund and the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the government will have to hike taxes or cut back on spending in other sectors in order to maintain current public health services.
Do you agree with the report? What can be done to improve the NHS?
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Comments
Some might argue that the NHS is not a business in the sense referred to above?
Having said that can't be easy managing the biggest employer in Europe....
It's biggest problem though is that patients aren't regarded as the customers. The customer is primarily the government, and in any situation that is far from healthy. For the service to improve, the customers have to be the first and only important stakeholders.