‘You Say Tomato’: Culture as a Signifier of Difference Between Health and Social Care
| Date | 01 September 2002 |
| Published date | 01 September 2002 |
| Pages | 23-26 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/13619322200200026 |
| Author | Edward Peck,Alix Crawford |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care |
Introduction
The NHS and local authority social services
departments have undergone huge organisational
reform in recent years, often in the cause of enhanced
partnership. One consequence has been that staff’s
awareness of how ‘things are done’ within their own
service has been heightened as organisations are
encouraged, cajoled and compelled by government
initiatives to collaborate. This increased awareness has
also served to highlight the perceived differences
between partner organisations. Much of this perceived
diversity is expressed in terms of differences in
‘culture’. This paper draws on a selection of recently
published and unpublished material to examine how
staff in the NHS and social services perceive and
experience differences between them and maps out
some of the issues intrinsic to discussions of culture.
A few initial notes on culture
The notion of ‘culture’ within an organisational
context is problematic and has many varied
definitions. For the purposes of this paper, the
definition of Schein (1997) is adopted. He suggests
that organisational culture can be thought of as the
shared basic assumptions that an organisation learns as
it solves problems of adaptation and integration.
These are considered to be ‘valid’ and are taught to
new members as the correct way to perceive, think,
feel or act.
The cultures discussed are the two distinct
‘You Say Tomato’: Culture as a
Signifier of Difference Between
Health and Social Care
Edward Peck
Director
IAHSP
Alix Crawford
Service Development Manager
IAHSP
Focus on…
manager and practitioner communities of the NHS
and local authority social services departments. Of
course, there are well-established professional groups
within these two communities which themselves
exhibit significantly disparate attitudes and
behaviours, but these are not our focus here (see Peck
& Norman, 1999). The broad thrust of this paper is to
establish the range of issues which the two
communities are typically subsuming under concerns
about ‘culture’ so that organisations pursuing
partnership can start to take steps to address them.
It is also perhaps important to say a few words
about classification. Anthropology tells us that the way
in which organisations classify things will be a major
reflection of and contribution to the way in which they
think and behave. For instance, the classification of
people as patients by the NHS and clients by social
services is significant for the assumptions and actions
of the two organisations towards people using their
services. Many of the differences in perception
outlined below will derive from the distinct
classificatory systems that the two organisations have
developed. Indeed, the importance of culture in
discussions around partnership may be a consequence
of the threat that it is perceived to pose to the
continuation of current classifications.
Further, identity within organisations is often
underpinned by being clear about what they are not.
At present, some of the identity of social services
personnel may well be derived from the fact that they
are not part of the NHS. This component of their
identity is thus under threat from the potential
development of partnership organisations.
The Mental Health Review Volume 7 Issue 3 September 2002 ©Pavilion Publishing (Brighton) 2002 23
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