ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to illustrate the effect such groupings have on the transfer and implementation of innovation and effective performance, the importance of social capital and community of practice as underlying principles for clinical engagement with innovation. Managed clinical networks have been evolving over the past few years within the National Health Service in response to the need for improved delivery and coordination of services across institutional boundaries. The binding mechanism (and metaphor) for networks is the patient journey, crossing institutional boundaries and providing a focus for the contributions made by multi-professional groups of healthcare workers. Clinical networks have great potential for transferring evidence-based practices across the network and accelerating learning. Learning happens because networks are 'communities of practice'. The systematisation of networks means putting structures, language and processes in place to relate clinicians' priorities and interests to those from other cultures; in so doing, to enhance the social capital of networks by fostering communities of practice.
