h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Some academics have come to the conclusion that healthcare managers would be better if they adopted the techniques used by football managers.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-20732972

'The paper says football is better at recognising underlying factors that can affect performance, including a single player's attitude, a muddy pitch, injuries and the impact of a hostile crowd.

"Healthcare researchers can learn from football by describing the important components of interventions more comprehensively and, irrespective of results, using research approaches that better address the complexity of interventions and seek to explain outcomes better."

The paper argues that other lessons for healthcare include a willingness to recognise and learn from failure, and exploring in detail not just whether team tactics - or medical treatment - work, but why…'

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So, what from the world of football would you like to see featuring in healthcare some time soon?

Cue Z turning up to suggest doctors get paid £100,000 a week...


For me, easy one - nurses in shorts.

If you turn up at A & E with an injury, they could provide a substitute who could go and do your job for you while you're being treated.

Poorly-performing trusts could negotiate transfer fees to move their worst patients to a different region.

Visitors to the obesity clinic could be greeted by a quick chorus of "Who ate all the pies..."

Considering the resistance to exercise of large portions of the general public, I think there are points at which the analogy is weak. The manager of any sports team can be selective about the players he selects. The ones who refuse to train or eat right would not be on the team at all. Health care teams, on the other hand, have to take the patients who come to them. This would include anorexics, bulimics, the obese, drug abusers, people of extraordinarily unlucky genetic makeup, competitors for the Darwin Award [i.e. hopelessly dimwitted], and many others that no sports team would allow among its ranks. Plus, health care workers might not have the funds at their disposal that a well-heeled sports team might have.

I don't deny that there might be coaches who could do superior work as managers of health care systems.

So just like football...

90% of the money would go to 10% of the hospitals, which only the richest 15% can afford to attend.

The rest of us will be standing on the terraces outside a portacabin which has to serve as A&E as well as the coffee shop and will be charged for the privilege of standing there if we stay more than 30 minutes.

Well, having heard a show on BBC Radio Four, a while back, Hospitals could adopt the strange ideas being used at some football grounds; where they actually make edible and* nutritious food. Last time I was in hospital for any period I refused to eat the food they provided, it was not something I'd want to have fed to a pet, and was not fit for humans to eat. I mainly therefore had to live off of rubbish; visitors bringing me takeaway food, and prepacked sandwishs etc... (unless of course hospital food has suddenly become edible)

but, mainly, nurses in short shorts Oh, and washing facilities for the mens wards, as well as the female wards would be nice.

The last hospital I was in had fantastic food. I was sorry when they released me. I haven't eaten that well since.

I actually heard that one, 2legs. An episode of the Food Programme about football terrace food. It was rather good.

TRiG.

And just like in football, when the managers make a complete mess of the job, they are handed a massive payout and move on to wreak havoc elsewhere

TRiG - Yep, that was the one.... Actually sounded half decent some of the food they were doing