This guide for setting up a clinical service in the National Health Service is based on the author’s experience of leading a nationally funded project to develop two new specialist services in different parts of the country and involving three separate NHS Trusts.
The project successfully delivered two services for personality disordered patients based on the template of Henderson Hospital, a democratic therapeutic community (TC). Kingsley Norton takes the reader, step-by-step, through the entire process of setting up these new services. Unpacking Henderson Hospital’s complex interpersonal environment into its ideological, ‘cultural’ and structural constituents, a development team that included ex-service users from Henderson used these ingredients to imprint the TC model in the newly recruited staff teams. The two replicated products were further supported and evaluated by the development team during their first 18 months of operation. The author reveals the complexity of the developmental task and shows that the process was never a case of ‘just adding water’.
Dr Norton’s wealth of hands-on experience and practical advice makes this book essential reading for anyone interested in management and the NHS or public services and attempting to innovate. It is also useful for those wanting to understand more about TCs and how they operate as institutions.
The project successfully delivered two services for personality disordered patients based on the template of Henderson Hospital, a democratic therapeutic community (TC). Kingsley Norton takes the reader, step-by-step, through the entire process of setting up these new services. Unpacking Henderson Hospital’s complex interpersonal environment into its ideological, ‘cultural’ and structural constituents, a development team that included ex-service users from Henderson used these ingredients to imprint the TC model in the newly recruited staff teams. The two replicated products were further supported and evaluated by the development team during their first 18 months of operation. The author reveals the complexity of the developmental task and shows that the process was never a case of ‘just adding water’.
Dr Norton’s wealth of hands-on experience and practical advice makes this book essential reading for anyone interested in management and the NHS or public services and attempting to innovate. It is also useful for those wanting to understand more about TCs and how they operate as institutions.
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Reviews
Anyone interested in managing change in any environment, especially if they want to innovate, would benefit from this book.
Norton has, I feel, done brilliantly in recording a thorough account of this long process of attempting to develop this new service. His own, and his team's commitment in trying to provide a larger service from an already successful and established one, is shown in detail. This book will enlighten anyone attempting to do the same. It may well put them off, or hopefully, it will prove invaluable in highlighting errors in the process and areas in which to take care, therefore making it less likely for others to make the same mistakes. It is also of interest to those of us working within the NHS, giving an insight into how higher management works within the organisation, and the incredibly complex machine that is our National Health Service.
If only it was as simple as 'Just add water' - we'd all be setting up new services!
This book would make good reading for anyone connected to the NHS who has thoughts of setting up a new service. It sheds light onto many questions that may be asked.
