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Culture and behaviour in the English National Health Service: overview of lessons from a large multimethod study
  1. Mary Dixon-Woods1,
  2. Richard Baker1,
  3. Kathryn Charles2,
  4. Jeremy Dawson3,
  5. Gabi Jerzembek4,
  6. Graham Martin1,
  7. Imelda McCarthy4,
  8. Lorna McKee5,
  9. Joel Minion1,
  10. Piotr Ozieranski6,
  11. Janet Willars1,
  12. Patricia Wilkie7,
  13. Michael West8
  1. 1Department of Health Sciences, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK
  2. 2Imperial College Centre for Patient Safety and Service Quality (CPSSQ), London, UK
  3. 3Institute of Work Psychology and School of Health and Related Research, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK
  4. 4Aston Business School, Aston University, Birmingham, UK
  5. 5Health Services Research Unit, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK
  6. 6Department of Social and Policy Sciences, University of Bath, Bath, UK
  7. 7National Association for Patient Participation, Surrey, UK
  8. 8Lancaster University Management School, Lancaster, UK
  1. Correspondence to Professor Mary Dixon-Woods, Department of Health Sciences, University of Leicester, 22–28 Princess Road West, Leicester LE1 6TP, UK; md11{at}le.ac.uk

Abstract

Background Problems of quality and safety persist in health systems worldwide. We conducted a large research programme to examine culture and behaviour in the English National Health Service (NHS).

Methods Mixed-methods study involving collection and triangulation of data from multiple sources, including interviews, surveys, ethnographic case studies, board minutes and publicly available datasets. We narratively synthesised data across the studies to produce a holistic picture and in this paper present a high-level summary.

Results We found an almost universal desire to provide the best quality of care. We identified many ‘bright spots’ of excellent caring and practice and high-quality innovation across the NHS, but also considerable inconsistency. Consistent achievement of high-quality care was challenged by unclear goals, overlapping priorities that distracted attention, and compliance-oriented bureaucratised management. The institutional and regulatory environment was populated by multiple external bodies serving different but overlapping functions. Some organisations found it difficult to obtain valid insights into the quality of the care they provided. Poor organisational and information systems sometimes left staff struggling to deliver care effectively and disempowered them from initiating improvement. Good staff support and management were also highly variable, though they were fundamental to culture and were directly related to patient experience, safety and quality of care.

Conclusions Our results highlight the importance of clear, challenging goals for high-quality care. Organisations need to put the patient at the centre of all they do, get smart intelligence, focus on improving organisational systems, and nurture caring cultures by ensuring that staff feel valued, respected, engaged and supported.

  • Health services research
  • Health policy
  • Management
  • Patient safety
  • Patient-centred care

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 3.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/

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