Constructive comfort: accelerating change in the NHS

The Health Foundation policy team carried out this project to communicate clear recommendations for enabling successful change in the NHS, grounded in the UK’s experience of what has gone before, where the NHS is now, and the principles of quality improvement.

The findings of this project were published in our report Constructive comfort: accelerating change in the NHS. The report identifies key factors needed for successful change and explores why they are not consistently present in the NHS. It sets out how national bodies can help make successful change more likely, in part by boosting the support provided to organisations and focusing on NHS staff leading change. It draws on:

• Workshops focusing on what helps and hinders change in the NHS involving commissioners, leaders in quality improvement and people who had participated in Health Foundation leadership programmes.
• Interviews with clinicians, academics, improvement leaders, commissioners, managers and leaders in national bodies about how change happens and what could be done differently.
• Our experience of funding, researching, supporting and evaluating improvement projects.
• Specific analysis of provider transformation, based on interviews with senior leaders from a range of acute providers.
• A scan of available empirical evidence about the barriers to making change in the NHS.