title: Misguided attitudes bar progress.
abstract: There was a former prison officer on a long-stay ward for older people where I once worked who was so implacably opposed to change and so firmly entrenched in odd little routines that if some minute alteration to the day-to-day running of the place was proposed by staff, it was easier to avoid telling him and facing his inevitable opposition than to go ahead and act. We would consult the others, not with any confidence that they understood, but more from a sense of duty. Then we would do the deed - weekend trips to the coast, for example, or something radical like re-arranging the day room - and then brave the huffing that would persist until the prison man acclimatised to the new arrangements.