Editorials
The Health Authorities Bill
Great care will be needed to avoid exacerbating unresolved and destructive tensionsBehind the Health Authorities Bill (about to complete its parliamentary stages) seethes a mass of unresolved tensions. On the face of it, all the bill will do is streamline the upper echelons of management in the NHS. It follows a major review of the NHS in 1993,1 which recommended that to refine the internal market the NHS should replace the old regional tier with eight new regional offices of the central NHS Executive and should enable the formation of local commissioning agencies from merged district health authorities and family health services authorities.2
Yet these small readjustments in bureaucracy will highlight at least three substantial areas of contention that are already pulling the NHS in different directions. Firstly, what will be the balance of power between the central NHS headquarters and the front line? Secondly, who will hold sway
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