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Lastly, remember Petronius?

"We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams, we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing, and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while only producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization".

Petronius Arbiter - 66 AD

One of the great quotes from all of history..............

well, that and "I have a cunning plan" !

Yes. I first came across "Petronius" when I was in the army (not, I should make clear, the Roman Army)! That was another organisation where we would never quite have finished completing the earlier "change of plan" before yet another was foisted upon us!

And, of course (and sadly), this continues in the present day, what with the constant "juggling" going on in Westminster.

We had Brigades ... then some bright spark came up with "Field Forces" ... then (a few years later) it was back to Brigades. Same blokes, same barracks, same kit. New paint job!

My old mob (the REME) was traditionally organised in "Workshops" (and why not, for that's exactly what we were ... field workshops, usually ... all of which had a proud history). Now I see they're Battalions. What [censored]! The infantry has Battalions. Why can't "they" leave well alone? That's the trouble (well, one of the many) with this country, there's too many clueless meddlers about ... which wouldn't be so bad, just as long as they were kept well away from having any sort of official influence (interference)!

and yet change is a good thing, in general.
None of us can really tell the final effect of any decisions that we take, only deal with the outcomes. We try something, we screw up, we try something else. This is true of business/public service/politics as it is of anything else. This is how the world progresses, by bumps and jerks (thankyou, no puns required on the jerks reference!) When you get to be as "old and cynical" as Geoff and I obviously are (or am I stepping on your toes here Geoff?) then we (make that I) tend towards a concervative view, yet, it is only by trying that we can progress.
To bring this back to where it started (and to contradict myself in some ways) perhaps the way forward (greater efficiency, cost saving, etc, etc) is indeed to look at more intigration of support services.
Frankly, I don't know, none of us do.

and by the way Geoff, not being ex-forces, what is REME?

.... and I should make a general apology for the standard of my spelling (this applies from now on to all posts), never was my strong point ! Does this post/forum system have a spell check?

No but your browser does

Firefox has one built in.
If you are using IE - you can download a plugin for it.

(Also, the Google toolbar has one built in.)

thanks Huw but I think that might of slightly off the post subject !!!!!!!

Oh no, now I'm in trouble..........................

That ship has long sailed Dave - Petronius?
(Excellent quote though.)

Yes, Dave ... best speak for yourself there, Mate. Rather than conservative, I like to think of myself more of a "radical"!

My own position (and deliberately resisting any temptation here to turn this into a "party political broadcast") is to make the world a better place! And that can mean innovation, but it can also mean adopting proven "best practice" once it has been achieved and demonstrated to be of worth. That is, as I seemingly never tire of saying:- take what is good, and reject the rest!

"Bumping and jerking" a juggernaut the size of the NHS is no mean feat, let me tell you!

PS: not ex-Forces? How come you're claiming to be a biomed then? You'll be telling us you don't have a beard next! [stand back, wait for sparks to fly ... etc., etc.]

Yes, but "best practice" is not a static thing. What was best practice 30 years back (or more) is now seem, quite rightly, as a disaster. Just look at the highrise housing in the UK in the '60s"

"Best practice" must be confronted and chalenged continiously, just as our children do to us and we did to our parents. Such is life.

Anyway, I shall leave you guys to your fun, I'm off.

Agreed (about seeking perfection, that is). Best practice is whatever it happens to be (that is, in the here and now). The problem that some folk seem to have is in identifying what it actually is.

I dare say that we see it all the time - people putting their own self-interest way ahead of any thought about what we might call "the common good"!

Not so sure about the "disasters" of yesteryear, though. No doubt they did the best they could under the circumstances then pertaining. And, frankly, some of what was achieved back in those days was astounding, even when (or should that be, "especially when") judged from our present view point.

But by the way ... there was nothing much wrong with those buildings per se ... the real problem was (and in some case, still remains) some of the dross who inhabited them.