Target delivery, service modernisation and system reform: reinventing planning in the English National Health Service

Abstract

Purpose: Aims to focus on the imperative to achieve national activity and performance targets in secondary care as set out in the NHS Plan.

Design/methodology/approach: The paper is in the form of "notes from the front line" that are based on the experience of the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust (RCHT).

Findings: These include that planning needs to be understood as the means by which the NHS manages its future; that planning needs to become more technically and methodologically sophisticated; that planning is a process rather than a description of an organisational function; and that the NHS will only resolve the shortage of planning competencies once planning is seen as a management disciple.

Originality/value: On the basis of the feedback received from drafts of this paper, it is suggested that the conclusions drawn are generally applicable across the English health service.