Influencing sceptical staff to become supporters of service improvement: a qualitative study of doctors' and managers' views.
OBJECTIVE
To explore scepticism and resistance towards changes in working practice designed to achieve service improvement. Two principal questions were studied: (1). why some people are sceptical or resistant towards improvement programmes and (2). what influences them to change their minds.


METHODS
Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with 19 clinicians and 19 managers who held national and regional roles in two national programmes of service improvement within the NHS involving systematic organisational changes in working practices: the National Booking Programme and the Cancer Services Collaborative (now the Cancer Services Collaborative Improvement Partnership).


RESULTS
Scepticism and resistance exist in all staff groups, especially among medical staff. Reasons include personal reluctance to change, misunderstanding of the aims of improvement programmes, and a dislike of the methods by which programmes have been promoted. Sceptical staff can be influenced to become involved in improvement, but this usually takes time. Newly won support may be fragile, requiring ongoing evidence of benefits to be maintained.


CONCLUSIONS
The support of health service staff, particularly doctors, is crucial to the spread and sustainability of the modernisation agenda. Scepticism and resistance are seen to hamper progress. Leaders of improvement initiatives need to recognise the impact of scepticism and resistance, and to consider ways in which staff can become positively engaged in change.
Gollop
R
R
Research into Practice Team, NHS Modernisation Agency, Leicester, UK. rose.gollop@npat.nhs.uk
Whitby
E
E
Buchanan
D
D
Ketley
D
D
D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D018166:Health Care Reform; D006270:Health Facility Administrators / Q000523:psychology*; D006302:Health Services Research; D006801:Humans; D009936:Organizational Innovation; D010820:Physicians / Q000523:psychology*; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care; D013222:State Medicine / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D006113:United Kingdom