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This paper is the account of one area health authority's attempt to give its managers some positive help with their own, and their subordinates', development and to provide a focus for the discussion of ideas on the development of the organisation. The last three years have seen an attempt to conceive and give birth to a management development philosophy which despite its hybrid nature (being the product of both theory and circumstances) seems to meet the needs of one health authority.

When the calculators do the calculating, the managers can do the managing. Len Goldstone of the UMIST Department of Management Sciences examines how close we are to that ideal. There are, he says, calculators of three levels of complexity and price, but warns that tomorrow's manager may find even the most sophisticated of today's instruments clumsy compared to the mini-computers now being developed.

Women working in the health service, and in other professions, have to combine shopping bags with briefcases. Jacqueline Brooks, deputy hospital secretary, Bromsgrove Hospital, says that there needs to be a change of attitude by both the female employee and the employer if her right to equal career opportunities is to be fulfilled.

A working week for the hospital administrator extends to more than a 37-hour office week. Many incidents occur which require a decision or intervention from an administrator out of normal working hours. An on-call rota system at Derbyshire Royal Infirmary has been in use since 1975.

The status of the unit administrator is quite often fourth or fifth in line because under the present structure administrators cannot take important decisions without consultation with other colleagues in different disciplines says the Royal Commission. Author looks at the work of one unit administrator at Tooting Bec Hospital.

A plea for less bureacracy and closer co-operation between health care professionals formed part of Basil Bush's presidential address to the IHSA annual conference last week. In an uncompromising speech he castigated the Government for the excessive numbers of circulars the DHSS issues and called for the institute to become the focal point for general administrators.