Management changes in the National Health Service : nursing and organisational theory in relation to the development of a new unit of health care.

This thesis gives an account of research into management changes in the English NHS following the implementation of the Griffiths' Report (1983). The research had three aims: 1. To describe and consider the effects of new management philosophies plans and practices by conducting a case study of one particular unit of health care. 2. To study theories of nursing and health care organisation. 3. To assess the relationship, if any, between experience and theory, suggesting ways to bring theory and practice closer together. The academic perspective is multidisciplinary, drawing on literature from nursing, organisational 'theory and behaviour, health service management, social science, philosophy, history, economics and policy studies. The thesis commences with a discussion of research methodology, arguing the appropriateness of an interpretive stance. An account of the development of the NHS and nursing's place within it is followed by a detailed case study of one unit, which lasted nine months and involved more than a hundred interviews. Particular characteristics of the case study are:- Data analysis utilising grounded theory methodology Inclusion of members of the organisational context A system for participants to validate data pertaining to themselves. The style is naturalistic, qualitative and processual. Presentation of the results recognises the existence of multiple interpretations of organisational reality; a metaphor likens the development of the Unit to the weaving of a tapestry, where the backing is the structure of the unit, and the pattern the perceptions, values and aspirations of its staff, patients and context members. Emerging themes in the thesis are:- the complexity of the NHS professional philosophies and their relationship to management organising as a process growth of a distinctive unit culture. A deliberate choice is made to expose the conflicts and difficulties of naturalistic inquiry, by reflecting on research method throughout the thesis, which is written in the first person.