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Fears have been expressed in many quarters that a purposeful
managerial approach to the running of a health service will prove
incompatible with clinical freedom. Such misgivings are
unlikely to survive a visit, for example, to the Programmed
Investigation Unit of the Manchester Royal Infirmary — a tonic
experience for all who believe that the destiny of medicine is
best fashioned by medical hands. Today this means active
involvement of the profession in management. A healthy portent,
to which I can testify personally, is the popularity of the
Management Courses for Consultant Medical Staff held in London
under the auspices of the King's Fund. Equally important for the
future is the fostering in medical schools of a holistic view both
of health and of care in the community of which the hospitals
form part. Now, at the approach to integration of the hitherto
tripartite health service, Hunter has charted the course for postgraduate
training in community medicine in which the universities,
the health services, and the newly formed Faculty of Community
Medicine will need to blend their efforts to ensure a smooth
voyage.
CONCLUSION
The toil of Hunter, albeit hampered by lack of exact knowledge
of the far-reaching changes in the National Health Service which
lie immediately ahead, will not have been in vain if in the end it
leads to a coherent combined effort — eschewing excessive
clinical or adminstrative pride - in which self is submerged in
that noblest of ventures, the prevention and relief of suffering.
Hunter has come, I hope, not to rest on well-deserved laurels but
to unite our endeavours within and without the discipline of
medicine in furthering to the limit of our ability the health and
welfare of the individuals whom it is our privilege to serve. Some
words of another of our literary giants of the nineteenth century
come to mind in relation to the hunter and the quest —
"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield".
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)
1 Reference
British Medical Journal, 1972, 2, 193.