Premium
Going public: references to the news media in NHS contract negotiations
Author(s) -
Hughes David,
Griffiths Lesley
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
sociology of health and illness
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.146
H-Index - 97
eISSN - 1467-9566
pISSN - 0141-9889
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9566.00359
Subject(s) - negotiation , publicity , adversarial system , public relations , ambivalence , competition (biology) , media relations , balance (ability) , business , service provider , public service , service (business) , political science , marketing , law , social psychology , medicine , psychology , ecology , physical medicine and rehabilitation , biology
This paper considers how middle‐level managers in British Health Authorities and hospital Trusts orient to media reportage in the process of negotiating and monitoring contracts for clinical services. Although they sometimes produce media representations aimed at influencing the general public, local policy actors on both sides of the purchaser/provider split also use media messages as part of their negotiations with each other. We examine how they seek to manage negative publicity, and what happens when one side threatens to ‘go public’. Managers must strike a balance between negotiating advantage and maintaining organisational relationships. Thus the powerful, but potentially double‐edged, weapon of public disclosure was usually broached in indirect terms, and approached with some ambivalence. In rare cases, parties resorted to hostile press releases as relationships deteriorated. Arguably, these interactions reflect more general tensions that arise when managerial discourses, emphasising concepts such as adversarial contracting, markets and competition, are imported into professional organisations with a public service mission.