Title: Change and changing: risk management in the NHS

Authors: Helen Bowers, David Preece,

Addresses: Health Advisory Service 2000, 5th Floor, Grosvenor Crescent, London, UK. University of Portsmouth, The Business School, Locksway Road, Milton, Southsea, Hampshire, UK

Abstract: Formal risk management programs are a relatively new development within the British health service, and are one of a number of changes which have occurred in recent years. In order to understand what they have come to involve in practice, and how their introduction has been handled, the paper focuses upon the adoption of a risk management strategy in a large healthcare community trust located in the south of England. It goes on to outline the risk management project which was initiated in 1994, to analyse some of the key challenges which have been faced during implementation, and to draw out the lessons which have been learned. These, we anticipate, will be of interest to academics, policy makers and practitioners. The central theme running through the paper is that changes need to be distinguished from changing whilst the former phenomena is perhaps pretty unremarkable today, changing people|s orientations, and, indeed, behaviour in some cases, is much more problematic and therefore challenging, not least for change agents.

Keywords: changes; changing; risk management; project management; implementation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJHTM.2000.001095

International Journal of Healthcare Technology and Management, 2000 Vol.2 No.5/6, pp.498-511

Published online: 30 Jun 2003 *

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