"Policy without resources is the worst of all possible worlds"
Sir Roy Griffiths -
Griffiths Report, Community Care, Agenda for Action, - Report to UK Government
on Future of Community Care, quoted in Hunter,
D.J. and Judge K. (1988) Griffiths and Community Care: Meeting the Challenge,
London, King's Fund Institute, page 4
"And it ought to be remembered that
there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or
more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a
new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have
done well under the old conditions, and but lukewarm defenders in those who may
do well under the new."
Niccolo Machiavelli,
1513, in his work "The Prince", Chapter 6:
"We trained hard,
but it seemed every time we were beginning to form up into teams, we would be
reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation
by reorganizing, and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of
progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization"
From Petronii Arbitri Satyricon AD 66.
Attributed to Gaius Petronus. Gaius Petronus, a Roman General, later committed suicide
"In
its most highly developed form, primary care is the point of entry into
the health services system and the locus of responsibility for
organizing care for patients and populations over time. There is a
universally held belief that the substance of primary care is
essentially simple. Nothing could be further from the truth."
Barbara Starfield (1992) Primary Care: Concept, Evaluation, and Policy.
Oxford University Press, NY (Preface)
"...
the failure to recognize that the results of specialized observation
are at best only partial truths, which require to be corrected with
facts obtained by wider study ... No more dangerous members of our
profession exist than those born into it, so to speak, as specialists."
William
Osler. Remarks on specialism. Boston Medical and Surgical Journal 1892;
126; 457-459. Quoted in Barbara Starfield (1992) Primary Care:
Concept, Evaluation, and Policy. Oxford University Press, NY (p. 3)