Abstract
The English National Health Service (NHS) is a public sector organisation with a longstanding objective to deliver high quality healthcare that is free at the point of use. In order to achieve this, the NHS has endured an evocative and controversial theme of reform across many decades. Despite such high levels of reform, the recent Operating Efficiency Framework declared that the NHS is about to enter its toughest ever financial climate. This paper will illustrate the complexities and tensions of implementing service improvement in the NHS in a climate of persistent policy reform, reduced budgets and tough regulation. The paper reports findings of three case studies of hospital trusts in the UK in relation to the implementation of Lean improvement methodologies, highlighting key complexities of a hospital context and the corresponding tension with service improvement activity.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 594-607 |
| Number of pages | 14 |
| Journal | Journal of Management and Organization |
| Volume | 18 |
| Issue number | 5 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Sept 2012 |
Keywords
- Complexity
- Lean
- NHS
- Public sector
- Service improvement
- Tension