Change Management
Introduction
This dissertation aims to analyse the experiences of merger of a cross section of staff groups including medical, nursing, administrative and clerical, and managers, from the newly formed Hospital Trust and to obtain their perspective on the strengths and weaknesses of how the change was managed.
The research will observe the rationale of merger, taking into account political motivations, aims and objectives. It will examine the implications for healthcare organisations including costs and savings and the effect upon services in terms of efficiency losses or gains, and will analyse the human resources implications including environmental changes, resistance to change, motivation, cultural and behavioural issues and health and safety issues. It will then critically evaluate the merger of the hospitals highlighting areas of particular strength or weakness.
The research will set out to ascertain whether the difficulties in adapting to the change experienced by the groups of staff were symptomatic of the human factor of merger not being given adequate consideration from the outset, or to establish that other issues were culpable. It is the objective of the research to examine particular areas of discontent, and to provide an informative document for the organisation to use in the event of future changes.
In the early days of the NHS, strategic planning was scarcely heard of and management’s task was simply to control every day matters and to solve immediate problems. Only with the recognition of emergent trends and political pressures has it been perceived that the NHS needs to look ahead in order to survive.
More than a fifth of National Health Service Trusts in the United Kingdom are currently, or have recently been involved in merger and yet it is noted that support for this massive change programme is not adequate. The delivery of acute healthcare in the UK has undergone a huge restructuring over recent years as a result of the...
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