Ian Kirkpatrick, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick

NHS managers could do with a facelift. Cure the NHS with far fewer managers and It is nurses working at the coalface of the NHS that we need, not more bosses are commonplace headlines. And cynicism about NHS managers is not limited to the media. Two years ago, the then minister for health, Jeremy Hunt, wondered whether the NHS had made a mistake in the 1980s “by deliberately creating a manager class who were not clinicians”. Both Labour and Conservative governments have tried (unsuccessfully) to reduce their number. Continue reading →