ABSTRACT
We take ‘bureaucracy’ to be, in common parlance, a broad synonym for poor management of the system and of provider organizations and believe that this prompts a fruitful approach to reducing the level of bureaucracy. The way forward is not to adopt the narrower approach of shortening forms and streamlining administrative processes but to modernise management to the highest standards. Bureaucracy in the narrow sense will naturally drop away as a by-product of managing well.
