Abstract

“The NHS may not, on a tight definition, be a business, but it has an obligation to its financial stakeholders , and this implies an ethical obligation to be business‐like. This means it must be as well‐managed as it is well‐meaning.” The author is Chairman of St George's Healthcare NHS Trust. Until 1988 she was Head of the Department of Politics at Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London, where she is now Visiting Professor. She is a non‐executive director of Norwich Union and of the HMV Group and her most recent book is Business Ethics at Work, Cambridge University Press, 1995