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Participation in decision‐making in the health services
Author(s) -
Boddy David
Publication year - 1978
Publication title -
journal of advanced nursing
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.948
H-Index - 155
eISSN - 1365-2648
pISSN - 0309-2402
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2648.1978.tb00850.x
Subject(s) - health board , service (business) , public relations , health care , health services , nursing , medicine , psychology , political science , business , environmental health , marketing , law , population
There is widespread discussion at the present time of ‘participation’— allowing members of an organization to exert an influence on the processes of decision‐making. The National Health Service is not isolated from this debate and already a number of experiments have been carried out at various levels of the service to allow a wider range of opinion to influence decisions than hitherto. This paper reports on a study the author carried out into one such exercise, designed to assist a Health Board reach decisions about the longterm pattern of health care in its area. Nurses, paramedical staff and local authority staff, as well as doctors, were appointed to a series of programme planning committees to advise the Health Board on issues of longterm policy. After 2 years of operation, a study was carried out into the operation of the committees and the lessons drawn from the experience should be relevant to actual and potential members of any consultative or decision‐making body.