ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on recent work undertaken for a large public sector health care organization by the University of Brighton's Management Development Research Unit. The challenge facing a large public sector health care provider in 1998 had elements that will be familiar to many public service organizations: increasing demands of government initiatives, new legislation and the need to recruit trained staff. These factors, together with a substantial number of new jobs, created a situation in which some of the organization's traditional management practices felt increasingly inadequate. The programme created by the University of Brighton for this public sector health care service, comprised a combination of projects, personal development plans (PDPs), workshops and self-managed action-learning set meetings; it lasted for one year, coming on stream in June 1999. In the Self-Managed Action Learning (SMAL) model the first two action-learning set meetings were facilitated by an experienced set adviser, who modelled good practice.