Principles of quality management in medicine: the British concept

The National Health Service in Great Britain is undergoing radical change particularly with regard to clinical governance, self-regulation, revalidation, career structures and training and patterns of healthcare delivery. All these changes are relevant to risk-control and quality management. This review surveys these generic changes and illustrates the implications for neurosurgery. Neurosurgery in the UK has the opportunity to enhance their patients care by expanding the number of consultants, developing further sub-specialisation and enhancing its training and review and dissemination programmes but only if extra resources are provided.