Letter: BBC's drive for 'grim efficiency'

Sir: John Tusa has pinpointed a malaise which is not confined to the BBC ('Tusa attacks 'grim efficiency' at BBC', 15 June): in trust hospitals, in universities, polytechnics and colleges of further education, the people in suits have taken over, leaving staff not only demoralised and angry but also dumbfounded at their sheer audacity.

Highly qualified, dedicated, often brilliant doctors, nurses and teachers are appalled by the lack of understanding of the nature of their work and of the needs of the 'customers', by the proliferation of meaningless information-collecting tasks, and by the self-important babble in which 'management' speaks.

Quite how these people in suits were allowed to take over, no one seems to know, but they rule and - out of either contempt or fear - staff let them. It is time they were stopped. Recently, there was a telling moment on BBC television's Cardiac Arrest: the manager who had threatened the sleep-deprived junior doctor into extending his shift turned up as his patient in Casualty. 'Now, how safe do you feel?' enquired the doctor. How many of us would like to be able to demonstrate so vividly to our managers that they have no idea what havoc they are causing?

The staff at the BBC are certainly not alone; we should all fight against this crassness.

Yours faithfully,

CHRISTINA McCLELLAND

Beeston, Nottingham

15 June