ABSTRACT
Operational research (OR) has research in its title. Its alternative name is ‘management science’. But research is certainly not all that it does, and its version of science is certainly not of the laboratory variety. It is arguable that OR constitutes one of the key elements which will enable health service managers to respond to some of the pressing current issues of health service organisation and delivery. The move from evidence-based medicine to evidence-based policy; the rhetoric (at least) of ‘joined-up government’; the refrain of ‘whole-systems thinking’ – all these play to the strengths of operational research.
