We monitored outpatient waiting times at UK military hospitals over an 18-month period (September 1996-March 1998). The highest mean waiting times for Consultant appointment were in urology (19 weeks) and orthopaedics (18 weeks). The lowest mean waiting times were in psychiatry (3 weeks), ENT surgery (5 weeks) and rheumatology (6 weeks). Waiting times for surgical specialties were around 50% hi...

While there are earlier records of investigation into performance, it is the work of Frederic Taylor in the early part of the twentieth century and his so-called ‘scientific management’ that laid the groundwork for modern concepts of performance management. As the result of the work of Taylor and others, private sector organizations, under the pressures of commercial competition, increasingly t...