Abstract
The NHS, under the umbrella of the DHSS, is the organisation which throughout the postwar period has employed performance indicators most extensively. As Table 2.1 illustrates, the collection and analysis of health service statistics is not, however, merely a postwar phenomenon; it began as early as 1732 when a Dr Clifton first suggested that basic health care data should be gathered and used as an instrument of evaluation:
Dr Clifton in 1732 and Florence Nightingale in the mid-nineteenth century suggested that certain items of data about all hospital in-patients should be systematically recorded, analysed and published, to enable the work undertaken by hospitals to be assessed. (Goldacre and Griffen, Performance Indicators.)
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© 1988 Paul Jowett and Margaret Rothwell
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Jowett, P., Rothwell, M. (1988). The Health Sector. In: Performance Indicators in the Public Sector. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-08987-1_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-08987-1_2
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-08989-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-08987-1
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