The relationship between politics and healthcare

Information is important in management decision making. The objective of the management accounting system is to provide the best information for assessments of the amounts, timing and uncertainty of cash flows to the business from each alternative course of action available to the business. The purpose of management accounting involves identifying the types of decision needed in management accounting in order to provide useful information for managers. The main types of decision include:

• Output decision-These are decisions on what types of goods or services should be supplied, at what prices and in what quantities.
• Input decision-These are decisions on how the outputs should be produced, i.e. the allocation of quantities used in raw materials, labour etc.

I think that these two types of decisions are inter-connected, because the cost of resources to produce goods and provide services is relevant to decisions on the best production output and best pricing strategy required. The framework for managerial planning, decision-making and control process incorporates seven stages, and this is illustrated by a flow chart. Stage 1 Identify goals of organization Stage 2 Collect and analyse data about Alternative courses of action Stage 3 Choose decision rules

Sample Solution

The relationship between politics and healthcare Health, and its promotion, are profoundly political. It is time that the implicit, and sometimes explicit but unstated politics within and surrounding health were more widely acknowledged. Health, like almost all other aspects of human life, is political in numerous ways: Health is political because, like any other resource or commodity under a Neo-liberal economic system, some social groups have more of it than others; health is political because the rights to `a standard of living adequate for health and well-being` (United Nations, 1948) is, or should be, an aspect of citizenship and a human right; health is political because its social determinants are amenable to political interventions and are thereby dependent on political action. Ultimately, health is political because power is exercised over it as part of a wider economic, social and political system. Changing this system requires political awareness and political struggle.