Managing professional integration in an acute hospital - a socio-political analysis

This paper considers the form that the challenge of the introduction of new ways of working takes for those charged with the management of new partnerships by drawing on some of the research and other literature currently available. The paper introduces a case study from a large NHS hospital trust in the north of England (NorthTrust) that highlights the early efforts of a group of medical and information systems staff to create and introduce an integrated care pathway (ICP). Within the paper the ICP will stand as representative of efforts to introduce change in line with the desires of the government, Department of Health and local management to fulfil the need to develop and manage a system of integrated care. The paper concludes by returning to the questions outlined above and offers some insights and directions for further work into an empirical domain that must be one of the most complex and controversial within the public sector.