Organisational innovation in health services: Lessons from the NHS treatment centres

Description

Amid a welter of simultaneous policy initiatives, treatment centres were a top-down NHS innovation that became subverted into a multiplicity of solutions to different local problems. This highly readable account of how and why they evolved with completely unforeseen results reveals clear, practical lessons based on case study research involving over 200 interviews. Policy makers, managers and clinicians undertaking any organisational innovation cannot afford to ignore these findings.

The authors are a multidisciplinary team of senior and internationally recognized researchers from the Universities of London and Southampton. John Gabbay researches into the way that knowledge enters policy and practice in organisations. Andree le May is renowned for her work on knowledge in practice. Catherine Pope is a distinguished qualitative methodologist with long experience in ethnographic research in healthcare. Glenn Robert specialises in organisational studies on quality and service improvement and large-scale change in health care. Paul Bate is a leading authority on organisational development and change management including health care in the UK and USA. Mary Ann Elston is a well-known researcher and teacher in medical sociology.

"This is a fascinating study of the fate of policy innovations in the NHS. Through detailed empirical research, the authors highlight the gap that often exists between plans laid down in Whitehall and experience on the ground. It provides salutary and timely reading for health reformers." Chris Ham, Chief Executive, The King's Fund "To become - or stay - efficient and effective the NHS needs to become good at innovation in service delivery as well as clinical practice. This book gives deep insight into the origin and development of Treatment centres, as a case of the conundrum of organisational innovation in the Health Service, namely how to ensure strategic direction, local ownership and adaption." Sandra Dawson, KPMG Professor of Management, Deputy Vice-Chancellor University of Cambridge & Fellow of Sidney Sussex College "This is a fascinating visit behind the scenes of the implementation of a major healthcare innovation. At a time when health systems face unprecedented change, here and overseas, this study makes salutary reading for those who promote change and for those whose task is to deliver it. To help the authors offer a very useful synthesis of the learning from this study and the wider innovation evidence base; well worth reading." Bernard Crump, University of Warwick