Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2018
Over the past 10 years or so, management has gained greater significance as a career choice for doctors. They see enormous opportunities to improve clinical care by having a greater say in setting the agenda of their organisation and directing the deployment of the local healthcare budget. While doctors have always enjoyed a position of major influence over the direction of the health service, real opportunities to operate as managers only became available in the mid 1980s with the implementation of the Griffiths Report (Department of Health and Social Security, 1983). Although mental illness hospitals had Medical Superintendents until the 1970s, professional hierarchies and consensus decision making, combined with incremental planning and an administrative culture, resulted in few opportunities for meaningful involvement of doctors in management.
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