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Although medical leadership and management (MLM) is increasingly being recognised as important to improving healthcare outcomes, little is understood about current training of medical students in MLM skills and behaviours in the UK. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This qualitative study used validated structured interviews with expert faculty members from medical schools across the UK to ascertain MLM framework integration, teaching methods employed, evaluation methods and barriers to improvement.

Data were collected from 25 of the 33 UK medical schools (76 per cent response rate), with 23/25 reporting that MLM content is included in their curriculum. More medical schools assessed MLM competencies on admission than at any other time of the curriculum. Only 12 schools had evaluated MLM teaching at the time of data collection. The majority of medical schools reported barriers, including overfilled curricula and reluctance of staff to teach. Whilst 88 per cent of schools planned to increase MLM content over the next two years, there was a lack of consensus on proposed teaching content and methods.

There is widespread inclusion of MLM in UK medical schools’ curricula, despite the existence of barriers. This study identified substantial heterogeneity in MLM teaching and assessment methods which does not meet students’ desired modes of delivery. Examples of national undergraduate MLM teaching exist worldwide, and lessons can be taken from these.

This is the first national evaluation of MLM in undergraduate medical school curricula in the UK, highlighting continuing challenges with executing MLM content despite numerous frameworks and international examples of successful execution.

“Corporate planning” is the term which, perhaps more than any other, epitomises the adoption of business management techniques by the public sector. In Britain, with massive local government reorganisation in 1974, many librarians were forced to come to terms with such techniques whether they liked it or not. Of course, in its purest sense corporate planning applies to the combined operation of an entire organisation be it local authority, university, government department or industrial firm. However, in this paper I do not intend discussing “the grand design” whereby the library is merely a component part of a greater body. Rather, it is my intention to view the library as the corporate body. It is a perfectly possible and very useful exercise to apply the principles of corporate planning, and the management techniques involved, to the running of a library or group of libraries. Indeed, many librarians have already done this either independently or as their part in the corporate plan of their parent organisation.

The research reported here focuses on how far, and at what cost, the housing stock can be modified to accommodate the assistive technology (AT) to enable older people to remain in their own homes. The conclusion is that the adaptability of the housing depends on a range of factors and costs. Older people welcome AT when it addresses a felt need. This article answers some of the frequently asked questions about the project.

It has often been said that a great part of the strength of Aslib lies in the fact that it brings together those whose experience has been gained in many widely differing fields but who have a common interest in the means by which information may be collected and disseminated to the greatest advantage. Lists of its members have, therefore, a more than ordinary value since they present, in miniature, a cross‐section of institutions and individuals who share this special interest.

REGULAR READERS of this column will have noted, perhaps with relief, the self‐restraint I have applied in recent months in connection with the game of cricket, not a word about which have I imparted to you throughout the summer.

Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).

I should like to begin with an analogy, which was used originally by Alan Gilchrist in a paper on cost‐effectiveness some years ago. The analogy is repeated almost verbatim because it says precisely what I want to say, better than I could have said it myself.