United Kingdom Health Statistics No. 3 (2008 edition)

摘要

You can't have it both ways. Keeping statistical records is a dreadful task, adding an enormous administrative burden to anyone trying to run a public service. It is also crystal clear to anyone that a simple set of statistics cannot present a complete picture of any organisation's activities. It is all too easy to be critical of our over-audited and over-regulated state - I too have done it: trying to patch together figures for the Society of National and University Library statistical return while saying to myself "Everyone knows that the Institute of Psychiatry library is the best of its kind in this country, if not in the world, so why do I have to waste my precious time going through this rigmarole?", or rejoicing when the government cut down on school SATS examinations. Pause and consider, nowever.