Southglam: Managing Organisational Change in a District Health Authority
Ever since the beginning of the twentieth century, when management emerged, academics and practitioners alike have considered the management of change in organisations as a very important branch of knowledge (discipline).
The appearance of large composite organisations after the Second World War heightened attention in this subject and thus, over the last fifty years, helped to create a large body that started thinking about the need change. An example of such a large and composite organisation is the National Health Service (NHS), the publicly funded healthcare system in U.K. It is widely recognised that the health service is in constant need for change since it has to be able to adjust in today’s rapidly changing environment. While some of the challenges the NHS is facing are new, many of them may benefit from the application of concepts that were developed quite a few decades ago. (Lles.V, Southerland.K, 2001).
The 1980s saw the introduction of modern management processes (General Management) in the NHS, which was introduced in order to replace the preceding system of management. This was outlined in the Griffiths Report of 1983.
The Griffiths Report made a number of recommendations regarding ways in which the National Health Service (NHS) could become more effective and efficient in its delivery of health care services. Firstly it suggested the positioning of general managers in the NHS with whom responsibility and overall accountability should lie and also recommended that clinicians should be better involved in management decisions, especially concerning budget. This meant that doctors would be held responsible and accountable for adhering to spending limits deci ...