title: The role of professional communities in governing patient safety.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Using the example of medication safety, this paper aims to explore the impact of three managerial interventions (adverse incident reporting, ward-level support by pharmacists, and a medication safety subcommittee) on different professional communities situated in the English National Health Service (NHS).
  
  
  METHODS
  Semi-structured interviews were conducted with clinical and managerial staff from two English NHS acute trusts, supplemented with meeting observations and documentary analysis.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Attitudes toward managerial intervention differ by professional community (between doctors, nurses and pharmacists) according to their existing norms of safety and perceptions of formal governance processes.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The heterogeneity of social norms across different professional communities and medical specialties has implications for the design of organisational learning mechanisms in the field of patient safety.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The paper shows that theorisation of professional "resistance" to managerialism privileges the study of doctors' reactions to management with the consequent neglect of the perceptions of other professional communities.
authors.affiliation: Department of Applied Health Research, University College London, London, UK. simon.j.turner@ucl.ac.uk
authors.forename: Simon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Turner
authors.forename: Angus
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ramsay
authors.forename: Naomi
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Fulop
mesh_terms: D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D004739:England; D006801:Humans; D007400:Interprofessional Relations; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008508:Medication Errors / Q000517:prevention & control*; D010348:Patient Care Team / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000592:standards; D061214:Patient Safety / Q000592:standards*; D010557:Personnel Administration, Hospital / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards; D010607:Pharmacy Service, Hospital / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000592:standards; D017009:Professional Autonomy; D012308:Risk Management / Q000592:standards; D017751:Safety Management / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000592:standards; D013222:State Medicine / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000592:standards; D013597:Systems Analysis; D000078329:Workforce