Patients Happier When Doctors Get Along

British hospitals where the doctors get along with National Health Service managers have happier patients with better outcomes, a study has found.

Ian Kirkpatrick, of the Leeds University Business School, found that where the two sides have formed a genuine alliance, the health service runs more efficiently — and patient outcomes are improved.

The report of the National Inquiry into Management and Medicine said: “The NHS is obsessed with money not with clinical care. This report shows that NHS organizations need to focus first and foremost on patients and their treatment and care and that should be modeled at the top of the NHS.”

It says the answer is not new management structures, but in a re-focusing of the organization’s energy and ways of working — this means learning what it is like to be a manager if you are a doctor, and what it is like to be a doctor if you are manager.

The report recommended both managers and doctors talk to staff, listen to their experiences of working together and assess whether their real-life stories suggest the working relationship is productive — or obstructive.