Organization development in a psychiatric hospital: creating desirable changes

The organization of the way in which hospitals and hospital staff provide a service to patients is obviously of critical importance to their effectiveness, yet it is clear that rigidities and inappropriate and ineffective procedures frequently intrude. It is commonly held that changing hospitals as organizations is difficult to accomplish, and indeed, reported attempts at such change reflect this. The project reported here was a successful attempt at changing a number of different aspects of the culture of a psychiatric hospital which included managerial practices and structure, aspects of patient care, multidisciplinary team work, and staff development. The present paper concentrates on some specific outcomes at ward level. The general pattern for bringing about change involves the collection of (valid) data and then feeding this back to the staff involved so that they can take appropriate action. The data discussed here concerned ward nursing staff's attitude to the ‘climate’ of the hospital, their job satisfaction and aspects of patient care. This was fed back to nursing, managerial and medical staff, and action plans were agreed to overcome the difficulties highlighted. Outcomes have included the production of ward and unit objectives and changes in treatment programmes and aspects of patient care on the wards.