Accountants already meddle

"How would the doctors like it if ... accountants took to offering minor surgical operations?"

By all accounts many problems in the NHS come down to the management structure. The installation of supermarket managers and the limitations of their somewhat poorly conceived financial models, targets and league tables, waste of front-line talent in report generation, and frequently poor allocation of resources all seem to have had a negative impact on patient care.

The NHS database software too, as El Reg has reported, would apparently have been better had the implementation involved more prior consultation with the doctors and others who have to use it.

Accountants and other non-medical professions already have a great deal of influence in the way that medical services are provided and delivered; and their influence is by no means always useful. Agreed, GPs nowadays don't have the status of demi-gods, but politicians, and a proportion of patients, do expect them to comment on lifestyle choices so we shouldn't be surprised when they do.

Lewis reported at length on David Mackay's work not so long ago, in which he puts sensible numbers on environmental constraints of the real world:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/20/mackay_on_carbon_free_uk/

http://www.withouthotair.com/

On the basis of the data it's difficult to deny that various anthropogenic factors present limitations to our finite world. Perhaps we should all take a look at the numbers, as Mackay has suggested, and see what sort of lifestyles are sustainable in the longer term.