ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the way in which doctors have been involved in management, leadership and transformation of services over the past seven decades since the inception of the National Health Service (NHS) in 1948. It can perhaps best be summarised as a movement from major domination preceding the NHS through a period of disenfranchisement immediately thereafter, right through until closer to the 1974 reorganisation of the NHS. By this time, a few doctors, generally reluctantly, accepted representative roles. However, the latter decades of the twentieth century and the early years of this century have led to doctors playing an increasing role in management, leadership and transformation of services at all levels.
