Health-care continuum

NHS managers must think of health care in a much wider sense than equating it solely with the National Health Service. Health care should rather be viewed as a continuum of businesses and services, including research and development, manufacturing, distribution and actual service delivery. Presents these and places them along a health-care continuum, which represents a systematic way by which the health care industry can be analysed through its discrete, yet integrated, segments. Manpower, along with finance and estate, are the key resource areas. Manpower resources must be managed effectively in order to maximize value for money, and ultimately ensure health gain for the patient.