This is an ambitious book that tries to cover both the theory and practice of management. The target audience is psychiatrists, psychiatrists in training and other mental health professionals who wish to learn more about management, and managers who want to learn more about the interface with clinicians. Reaching a third edition is testimony to its usefulness. The gap between the second and third editions is, however, long and has seen massive (and continuing) change in the way in which the National Health Service is managed. This change inevitably causes major problems for any book seeking to deal with the details of health service management and, appropriately, a whole section of the book (Part II) is devoted to ‘Changes and conflicts’. In fact, the first part of the book (‘Theoretical overview’) also contains a great deal about change, for example the chapters devoted to planning the medical workforce and the National Service Framework for Mental Health.

The entire book is (potentially, at least) useful, some of it is interesting, and several chapters are stimulating and even entertaining. Outstanding in this respect is Mark Salter's sometimes contentious but always lively advice on ‘Surviving as a junior consultant’. I also found the chapters on planning for the medical workforce (Sally Pidd) and managing the psychiatrist's performance (David Roy) particularly interesting. Least readable was the chapter on developing community care policies, the second part of which consists largely of a list of documents and websites that would have been better relegated to an appendix.

The book attempts to be fairly comprehensive, even including chapters on special issues in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. References vary from chapter to chapter and sources are not always acknowledged; in the case of Sir John Whitmore's ‘GROW’ model this is a shame because the original work is such a gem. Another issue with respect to comprehensiveness (despite Alistair Burns as co-editor) is its over-emphasis on working age adult (general) psychiatry as compared with old age or child and adolescent work. A little more on the major specialties would have been welcome. Minor criticisms aside, this is a useful work. I can think of no other introduction to management for psychiatrists that is so wide in its scope. Inevitably, in a multi-author book dealing with such a complex and fast-changing situation, it is patchy. Nevertheless, for the final-year trainee, the consultant new to management or the ‘old hand’ wanting to brush up on areas that have changed in the past few years, it is a welcome and useful ‘bench-book’.