After a brief review of the nature of strategic planning, and the problems of defining health service objectives, the paper concentrates on the question of "strategic control", in the context of a regional health authority. The purpose of monitoring is defined in detail. A critical review of concepts of control in various disciplines considers their suitability to the health authority context. An integration of feedforward and feedback control loops is developed, in order to meet the specific characteristics of a system in which "environment" can be viewed as the "input", and to provide the adaptive, learning capability which is required by the situation of insufficient data, ignorance of underlying mechanisms, and continuing change
