In the face of rising demand the challenges facing healthcare systems will always be complex. The question is whether healthcare can also be fair, resilient and humane, says Simon Moralee.
Health systems across the globe are confronting rising demand, workforce pressures and political uncertainty, bringing with it huge complexity for those leaders tasked with managing these changes.
As such it is timely that the latest edition of Healthcare Management, an authoritative guide for healthcare leaders, has just been published. Edited by myself and Professor Kieran Walshe from Alliance Manchester Business School’s Health Management Group, alongside Dr Manbinder Sidhu and Professor Judith Smith (University of Birmingham), this latest edition draws together scholarship and practice insight from across the UK and international contexts.
Rather than offering quick fixes, the book takes a measured view of long-term system management, asking not only how healthcare organisations should function, but what values ought to underpin them.
What distinguishes this latest edition is its ability to reframe management beyond a purely operational function. Across its themes, from economics to equality, the unifying message is that values, relationships and systems thinking matter as much as strategy.
The tone is pragmatic rather than optimistic, yet it encourages an assured, evidence-informed leadership approach. Whether you are operating within the NHS, managing a hospital network in Europe, advising on health reform in Africa or studying health policy in Asia, the book offers both grounding and provocation.
Within the book we identify 10 key themes for navigating modern health systems:
One: Leadership and Governance
Effective stewardship relies less on charismatic authority and more on clarity, accountability and sustained collaboration. In an era where public trust is increasingly fragile, the emphasis is on consistency rather than heroics.
Two: Quality Improvement and Patient Safety
Long-standing frameworks such as Lean and Six Sigma are revisited with a focus on how they can be meaningfully employed to support learning cultures. The message is clear: improvement is not a technical exercise but a social one, dependent on curiosity, humility and persistence.
Three: Equality, Inclusion and Public Health
Inequalities remain a persistent feature of health systems worldwide. This edition confronts structural imbalances head-on, connecting workplace diversity to broader public health outcomes. It challenges leaders to see equity not as an optional agenda item, but as fundamental to system effectiveness.
Four: Global Health Governance and Policy
With health challenges increasingly transnational – from pandemics to migration – the chapters on global health governance and policy comparison are particularly timely. They offer a grounded view of how different systems respond to similar pressures, encouraging readers to look beyond national boundaries without assuming that one model fits all.
Five: Funding, Economics and Resource Allocation
Resource constraint is presented not merely as a technical difficulty but an ethical one. The discussion on priority-setting highlights the importance of transparency – whether allocating funds within a single ward or at ministerial level - and acknowledges that every financial choice carries a social consequence.
Six: Sustainability and Climate Resilience
Climate change is no longer framed as a distant concern. The book treats sustainability as integral to system resilience, exploring carbon reduction, infrastructure adaptation and supply chain vulnerability. Environmental strategy is presented as both a moral and operational necessity.
Seven: Technology, Data and Innovation
Digital transformation is approached with cautious realism. While data analytics and informatics offer clear potential, the authors warn against technology that outpaces culture. Metrics must be comprehensible, trustworthy and designed to support judgement rather than replace it. Innovation, in this view, is as much about governance as gadgets.
Eight: Service-Specific Perspectives
Different care settings – from primary and acute care to mental health and social care – are examined with nuance. Rather than treating sectors in isolation, the book highlights interdependencies and the risks of fragmentation. Integration is treated not as a slogan, but as a logistical and relational challenge.
Nine: Workforce
The workforce chapter will resonate with managers across continents. Retention, development and culture are treated as strategic imperatives rather than HR exercises. Post-pandemic fatigue is acknowledged without sentimentality, alongside practical suggestions for building more sustainable career pathways.
Ten: Patient and Public Involvement
Perhaps one of the clearest signals in the book is the rejection of healthcare as a provider-led enterprise. Instead, co-production is presented as a necessary evolution in legitimacy, design and delivery. Involving patients is no longer portrayed as engagement, but as governance.
Healthcare Management is available via McGraw-Hill Education >>
Simon Moralee recently facilitated the 2025 Teddy Chester Lecture, delivered by Professor Henrietta Hughes OBE, the inaugural Patient Safety Commissioner for England. You can watch a recording of the lecture below.
