The general management 'mistake'

The general management 'mistake' Reflecting on the small proportion (less than a third) of NHS chief executives from a clinical background, Jeremy Hunt questioned ‘whether the NHS made a historic mistake in the 1980s by deliberately creating a manager class who were not clinicians, rather than making more effort to nurture and develop the management skills of those who are’.

The development of general managers in the 1980s followed the Griffiths Report, which argued that business-like principles were required in the NHS to oversee ‘planning, implementation and the control of performance’. Griffiths’ vision was that significant and lasting change in the NHS was possible only with management techniques found in industry. Although Jeremy Hunt suggested that this policy distanced clinicians from management responsibility, the report was actually quite clear that doctors would need to take on these roles if they were to keep the freedom to choose how to investigate and treat patients. The King's Fund