On Sun, 9 Aug 1998 00:03:40 +0100, Adrian Midgley wrote:
>that there is no other organisation with which the NHS may usefully be
>compared.
I second.
"There was once a boat race between a Japanese crew and an NHS
Executive team. Both practised long and hard to reach peak performance
but on the big day the Japanese won by a mile.
The NHS team became discouraged and morale sagged. Senior officers
decided the reasons for the crushing defeat must be found and set up a
working party to investigate the problem and recommend action.
That concluded that the Japanese team had eight people rowing and one
steering while the NHS team had eight people steering to one rowing.
It immediately hired a consultant to look at the team's structure.
Millions of pounds and several months later the consultant reported
that too many people were steering and not enough rowing.
To avoid losing, again the team's structure was changed to give three
assistant steering managers, three steering managers, one executive
steering manager and a director of steering services. A performance
and appraisal system was also set up, to give the person rowing the
boat more incentive to work harder.
The Japanese were challenged to another race - and won by two miles.
Police managers responded by laying off the rower for poor performance,
selling the oars and cancelling orders for a new boat. The money saved
was used to finance higher-than-average pay awards for the steering
group."
(courtesy of THS June 1998)
Ahmad
________________________________________
Dr Ahmad Risk
http://mednetics.org
home: +44 1273 748198
work: +44 1737 240022
fax: +44 1737 244660
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