Decision making & problem solving Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4250 words

Decision making & problem solving - Essay Example The National Health Services, a publicly funded healthcare organization, was founded in UK near about fifty years ago. Their focus on modernization in the management has given new edge to the functioning of the NHS. It is significant that the NHS management has readily recognized the need for the charges, and timely implemented the plan But the momentum for the charge has only started gaining pace. These changes are not necessarily the result of the internal market for health. They arise partly also from developments in the science of medicine itself. Four changes will have particular impact on the future organization of the NHS (Leathard, 1991, p.126).Assuming that medical science remains in continual state of development and evolution, differences of opinions between doctors become inevitable. The law regarding medical negligence permits wide range of practice variations.Though the NHS does not have a profit motive, it is, of course, enormously concerned with control of expenditure . Surprisingly, however, it still lacks any real continuous evaluation of its performance against criteria.Concerns about the irrational use of medicines has led the government to introduce scheme designed to put downward pressure on indiscriminate prescription. GP spending on pharmaceuticals is now subject to regulation by indicative amounts, or 'target budgets'. In the past, the stance of the British Medical ... The concept of the 'general' hospital, with broad range of services designed to cater for the needs of a variety patients, will decline. Instead, there will be smaller number of specialist units which maximize the use made of expensive equipment (Astley & Van de, 1983, p.245-273). This will bring out movement from secondary to primary care and an increase in the power of GPs both in terms of the numbers of patients they treat and their influence over the distribution of health service resources. Their role as passive partners in the enterprise of health, removed from the reality of hard decisions about costs and benefits, will be change. Inevitably, they will become more involved in the debate about priorities in health care. Secondly, since the power to decide how resources should be spent gets decentralized, tension will arise between the duty of the Secretary of State to promote national strategies and objectives and the wishes of local doctors and health managers as to their own goals and aspirations. Thirdly, the use of market for health care will not discourage this trend. The use of the word 'market' is undoubtedly contentious and the exact future of the current system of funding, obviously, will be subject to the winds of political change. Equally, both main political parties would endorse the following two principles: (i) that effective care in the NHS is enhanced by the use of some measure of financial incentives for employees who achieve most, and (ii) that an entirely unregulated market for health care in the NHS would be largely ineffective and wasteful. Fourthly, the distinction between public and private care will become increasingly blurred. Private hospitals will be encouraged liberally and be able to sell their services to