Kindly technicians: hospital administrators immediately before the NHS
Abstract
Presents the results of a qualitative analysis of copies of The Hospital, a journal for UK hospital administrators, from 1946‐1948: immediately prior to the establishment of the NHS. Characterises administrators in that period as kindly technicians. Analyses administrators’ ways of thinking; spheres of influence and level of education. Also notes their concern for the running of support services; their implicit and unexamined deference to medical staff and an explicit belief in the need to carry out their role with kindliness. Concludes by highlighting the changes in managerial thinking between the 1940s and today and speculates that these changes may be best understood, following Foucault, as phenomena of rupture and discontinuity rather than as linear progression.
Keywords
Citation
Learmonth, M. (1998), "Kindly technicians: hospital administrators immediately before the NHS", Journal of Management in Medicine, Vol. 12 No. 6, pp. 323-330. https://doi.org/10.1108/02689239810234562
Publisher
:MCB UP Ltd
Copyright © 1998, MCB UP Limited