The debate about the most appropriate balance between knowledge, critical analysis and evaluation, application and skills continues to vex many programme directors of health management courses. No doubt the debate will continue as the teaching quality assessment exercise rolls out across all universities and subjects and the principles of the Dearing Report are tested.
The book provides a very good understanding of the issues involved in managing health care from individual, group and organisational perspectives. Valerie Iles has many years’ experience working with and teaching colleagues involved in health care management. She draws on a wide range of manage‐ment theory and includes five well‐constructed case studies drawn from different backgrounds. Management jargon is successfully eschewed in her objective to reach the increasing number and range of people undertaking management in health care, sometimes without realising the various components of their roles. Particular emphasis is given to the interface with clinical issues and personal and organisational development. Indeed the book concludes with a comparison of “simple, hard aspects of good clinical practice and real management”.
The book does not set out to be an academic text. I would recommend it to anyone working in health care who sees themselves or is seen by others as a “manager” and to university and other academic colleagues who become frustrated by students from health care backgrounds saying “it doesn’t work like that in our situation”.
