ABSTRACT
Management of the health or social services is infinitely more complex than management of commercial or industrial enterprises. At lower levels there may be great similarities in the nature of the problems to be solved. A hospital must be run efficiently and economically. It is the responsibility of management to see that resources of material and manpower are not used wastefully and to carry out functions decided for them. But even at the level of the hospital there are important differences. The work force is dealing largely with people and not with machines, people whose interests are important not only to the end of a contract but till the end of their lives. Patients and their relatives who accompany them and visit them are often under considerable physical and emotional stress, which it is the duty of the hospital workers to perceive and understand. It is far less permissible for a hospital worker than a worker in any other service industry to refuse to deal with a client on the grounds of stupidity, rudeness or non-cooperation. These may be the outward signs of what has brought the patient to the hospital.
