text: Health administration: planning: push-button age.
  With the development of strategic and operational planning in the NHS, the demands for techniques for gauging manpower implications have grown increasingly loud. At the same time the rise in labour costs has renewed interest in planning the use of NHS skills more purposefully. In the first of two articles (the second will appear in the near future) on the topic, Drew Clode examines some of the methods available nationally for collecting personnel data.