Understanding Doctors' Performance addresses possible reasons why doctors under-perform, covering specific areas such as education and training, physical and mental health, workload, personality, organisational culture, drug and alcohol misuse, and cognitive impairment. It draws together evidence, and describes the factors (apart from clinical competence) that adversely affect performance and how they can be prevented, identified, assessed and addressed. This practical and easy to read book is invaluable for NHS managers, medical directors, chief executives and board members, along with directors of human resources in healthcare and healthcare professionals interested in the assessment of performance or the management of underperformance.

Jenny King was born in London during the Blitz. Her parents, both teachers, encouraged her to write poetry as a child and overcame wartime paper rationing to make her a book to write them in. Her poems view the world calmly, thoughtfully. They consider memory, peace and its opposite, the inwardness and variety of the natural world, and how an individual relates to others. All the poems are concerned with the interest and excitement of language itself. Some use traditional patterns in unexpected ways, sometimes including rhyme, sometimes in more fluid forms. They work for clarity and memorable perception. Accessible language and natural rhythms are always important though used variously. Looking into the known - or half known - past of family history, the poem can disclose the fallibility of memory but also how present relates to past and how the present with its difficulties intrudes on any consideration of how to live. These poems result from a long writing life and study of both past and contemporary poets.