ABSTRACT
This chapter tells a story of a cultural change in a British National Health Service hospital ward. It is one of the many stories arising from a major action research project conducted by Alison Binnie, a practising nurse and clinical leader, and myself, an educationist, researcher and development worker in health care. The project was set up to help nurses in the Medical Unit at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, to transform their traditional nursing practice to a patient-centred service. In addition, the aims of the study were to generate and test theory about effective change strategies and to theorize the experience of change for those involved in, or affected, by it. Our objective was to provide a ‘map’ of the journey for other nurses in the UK, to help them to manage and evaluate change effectively, to alert them to possible problems and solutions and to speed up changes that take several years to achieve.
