Interunion competition bleeds the NHS.

There is one disturbing similarity between the two very dissimilar hospitals. In both cases industrial relations have been complicated and embittered by a degree of interunion competition that seems to have left management virtually powerless to effect improvements in the departments and sections concerned. _011|Rainhill is a 1550-bedded psychiatric hospital in the St Helens and Knowsley AHA, managed extraterritorially by Liverpool AHA(). The terms of reference of the inquiry were: "to inquire into the present state of industrial relations at the hospital, the availability of trained management resource associated therewith and to make recommendations" and "to investigate allegations of irregularities and malpvractices within the hospital and to report thereon."' Westminster Hospital is a 368-bedded teaching hospital with a range of acute specialties. It is managed by the Southern District of Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster AHA(T) and forms a sector of that district in its own right. The terms of inquiry at the Westminster