We are familiar with the idea that the distribution of consultants should be guided by ‘norms' supported by the College. Current norms have been derived from what is (or rather was at the time), not from knowledge of how consultants spend their time, still less on the basis of estimates of morbidity or demand. As Russell noted, a norm of one consultant for 70,000 people was developed using simple arithmetic when there were 700 consultants available to forty-nine million people. From this starting point, one consultant to 60,000 or 40,000 or 25,000 people suggests the possibility of an improved service, but it cannot be assumed that the service is better simply because more people are providing it. Evaluation of the consultant's contribution to a service requires, among other things, knowledge of what the consultant actually does with his time.

The second AUTP conference took place at University College, Oxford from 12 to 14 April 1984. The themes were the theory and teaching of psychotherapy, and the place of personal experience in training. In addition to the plenary meetings the conference divided into small discussion groups; in this report I deal only with the former, of which I had a complete record.

Readers of these columns may recall that some years ago we scooped the psychiatric world with an exclusive article on the 1974 reorganization of the National Cricket Service and its effects on a local hospital cricket team. At that time Captains of such teams were abolished and replaced by Multidisciplinary Cricket Management Consensus decision-making processes: ongoing as I recall.