Thinking time, the scarce rocket fuel of health services

The psychologist Edward de Bono, who died earlier this year, popularised lateral thinking (doi:10.1136/bmj.n1831).1 An IBM researcher told Bono that his book Six Thinking Hats reduced meeting times to a quarter of what they had been. Creative thinking, argued “is skill can be practised and nurtured.” That may so, but through innovative solutions strategies requires time—and time is commodity currently in short supply. Without think, it’s hard see our way out the backlogs cancer services will take decade clear (doi:10.1136/bmj.n2352)2; or an end overprescribing results 10% prescriptions being inappropriate (doi:10.1136/bmj.n2338) …