Books Review
| Pages | 36-40 |
| Date | 01 March 2003 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/13619322200300008 |
| Published date | 01 March 2003 |
| Author | Edward Peck |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care |
Books Review
Re-engineering Healthcare: The
Complexities of Organisational
Transformation
Terry McNulty & Ewan Ferlie
Oxford University Press (2002)
pp388, £50 (hardback)
The New Politics of the NHS (4th edition)
Rudolf Klein
Prentice Hall (2001)
pp245 £22.99.
The National Health Service: A Political
History (new edition)
Charles Webster
Oxford University Press (2002)
pp283, £12.99
Implementing Public Policy
Michael Hill & Peter Hupe
Sage (2002)
pp231, £19.99
hese are four books of direct
relevance to those involved in the modernisation of
the National Health Service. The first is a detailed
account of a prototype modernisation project in an
NHS hospital. The middle two are histories – and in
particular political histories – of the NHS. The last is a
critical overview of the current state of theory
addressing the implementation of public policy.
Ewan Ferlie is becoming established as the pre-
eminent contemporary analyst of policy
implementation in the NHS. From his study of the
introduction of the reforms contained in Working for
Patients (published by the Oxford University Press as
The New Public Management and Action in 1996) to his
work on the adoption of innovation in the NHS (see
his chapter with Louise Fitzgerald and colleagues in
Organisational Behaviour in Healthcare: The Research
Agenda, edited by Mark and Dopson and published by
Macmillan Business in 1999), the Ferlie style has
clearly emerged. It consists of methodologically robust
longitudinal research studies within the NHS, placed
Tin the context of the relevant international literature
on organisational behaviour, and put across in cool,
clear prose.
Re-engineering Healthcare is among his most
important publications to date. It is an account by
Terry McNulty and Ferlie of the attempt to introduce
significant change into the Leicester Royal Infirmary
during the mid-1990s. This project received
considerable attention within the NHS, arguably
shaped the New Labour government’s aspirations for
the modernisation of healthcare and contributed to
two of its central players taking on key roles in the
mechanisms of modernisation (ie the Commission for
Health Improvement and the Modernisation Agency).
Given the prominence that has been granted the LRI
experience, you might approach this book expecting
to read of the ways in which the hospital overcame the
complexities of organisational transformation and set
off down the road to modernisation.
However, the story is nothing like that simple. As
McNulty and Ferlie put it: ‘Whilst re-engineering
effected some change in the organisation of the
hospital and provisional patient services, it did not
36 The Mental Health Review Volume 8 Issue 1 March 2003 ©Pavilion Publishing (Brighton) 2003
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