ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the Service’s fundamental attitude towards increased participation and suggests possible developments which may follow from its introduction. The sheer size and scope of the Health Service in terms of geography, organisation and labour have dictated that wages and general industrial relations policies be controlled by the Minister with Treasury involvement. The chapter suggests that the change in industrial relations represents an increasing awareness amongst Health Service staff, and in particular amongst ancillary workers, of their ability to exercise control over areas of decision-making that were the traditional reserve of hospital management. The hospital sector which dominates the National Health Service is a labour-intensive undertaking. The forms which participation in the Health Service have taken since 1948 have been in terms of collective bargaining and joint consultation arrangements, both of which are indirect forms of participation. The nature and form of the Service’s consultative arrangements can be compared with the main features of joint consultation in Britain.
