What is happening in the NHS?

Many case studies, evaluations or small research projects have described barriers to improvement in the NHS. While the barriers from these studies may not be generalizable, they provide useful themes. This section explores the most frequently identified barriers to improvement in the NHS.

Overview

Our scan of empirical studies outlining barriers to improvement in the NHS found that challenges could be classified in terms of whether they related to:

  • the intervention itself
  • individuals associated with implementation
  • organisational or team-related factors
  • system-wide barriers.

This section briefly describes some of the barriers identified in each of the four broad areas.

These four factors are similar to the international literature (as described overleaf). However, research about the NHS tends not to focus so much on barriers associated with the interventions themselves.

Issues related to the specific characteristics of improvement initiatives in the NHS included the following.

Usability

  • Perceptions that tools or changes were not easy to use or implement.
  • Complexities of care pathways or the number of stakeholders involved.,
  • Number of improvements or changes implemented simultaneously.

Fit

  • Perceptions that improvements did not sit well with existing processes or organisational realities.
  • Lack of evidence base.

Below are some examples from individual studies.

Examples of studies that identified barriers related to intervention characteristics

Usability barriers

The former NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement’s sustainability model was designed to help health care teams take action to embed improvements in routine care. A study with 19 NHS organisations throughout the UK found that most teams did not use the model consistently to take action. Some team members said they had difficulty understanding and applying the model or did not think it was useful.

Another study of 10 hospitals using the World Health Organisation (WHO) surgical safety checklist in England found that the design of the tool and the way it was put into practice affected outcomes. The most common barrier was resistance from senior clinicians, but there were also issues with the tool design and layout, a lack of integration into existing processes and staff feeling that it had been imposed.

Complexity

An example of how context, process and perceived outcomes are all potentially important barriers to improvement comes from a study of 11 mental health innovation projects within community, voluntary and NHS settings. Key barriers to improvement included the perceived complexity of the innovation, resistance from corporate departments and middle management and access to resources within the host organisation.

Introducing multiple approaches simultaneously

A quality improvement collaborative in England aimed to improve ambulance care for people with heart attacks and strokes. Evaluation found many successes from the collaborative approach, but issues that limited progress included difficulty using formal quality improvement tools, terminology, and lack of staff skills and confidence in improvement methods. A wide number of tools were used, such as shared learning sessions, monthly teleconferences, annotated control charts, provider prompts and individualised or team feedback. Introducing so many things at once may have been difficult for teams to cope with.

Using barriers as a justification

A study from England sounds a note of caution, suggesting that reported barriers to improvement may be used as an ‘excuse’ or a way of avoiding change. An examination of how GP practices implemented National Service Frameworks found that staff cited various barriers related to the frameworks such as the complexity of the documents and lack of time for implementation. It appeared that there were many barriers related to the tools themselves. However, observation at meetings, interviews and document analysis revealed that these barriers were constructions that staff used to justify why tasks had not been completed. Staff said that the tools were ‘too hard’ to use or that they had no time to do so, but interviews found they were prioritising other things. Thus, stated barriers may also reflect staff buy-in and priorities. This is an example of how barriers can span multiple categories simultaneously.

The key barriers related to individuals identified in studies in the NHS included the following:

Attitudes

  • Resistance from clinicians and managers.,,,,,
  • Lack of trust in the process, stakeholder organisations or data.,
  • Perceived conflicts between the views of patients and professionals.,
  • Assumptions about what patients want.

Skills and training

  • Lack of confidence among professionals about their abilities.,
  • Lack of skills in improvement approaches.,
  • Lack of skills in project management.
  • Lack of skills in change management.
  • Lack of analysis skills.,
  • Lack of pre-registration training and continuing professional development about improvement.,,
  • Differences in individual learning styles.

Time/prioritisation

  • Lack of time available to think about improvement.,
  • Lack of time available to implement improvement.
  • Competing priorities.

Professional roles

  • Strong disciplinary demarcation of roles.,
  • Culture of specific professions.
  • Lack of authority or autonomy to undertake improvement.
  • Failure to assume responsibility.

Resources

  • Reimbursement and contractual issues, particularly for GPs and dentists.

Staff resistance to, or lack of acceptance of, change was repeatedly highlighted. Factors identified as affecting staff acceptance involved the perceived negative impact of service change, staff–patient interaction, credibility and autonomy and technical or design issues.

Below are some examples from individual studies.

Examples of studies that identified barriers related to individual characteristics

Clinician attitudes

In Wales, doctors and nurses at 22 NHS sites were interviewed about why they did or did not embrace online patient decision support initiatives. The greatest barrier was the attitudes of clinicians and clinical teams. Technical problems contributed to professionals’ views but low engagement was mainly due to clinicians’ limited understanding of how the tools could be helpful, thinking that shared decision making was already commonplace and assuming that some patients are resistant to being involved in treatment decisions. Clinicians did not feel the need to refer people to use decision support tools, and did not see why they should change their existing routines. Factors such as efficiency targets and guidelines were also cited as barriers.

Confidence

A study of introducing end-of-life care pathways in three acute hospital trusts in England found that barriers may include leadership and facilitation, education and training, staff confidence and lack of communication across boundaries. Even when there was effective leadership at all levels of an organisation and extensive education for all staff, significant barriers remained, particularly staff anxieties about putting improvement into practice.

Trust

A study in Scotland explored barriers to GPs taking part in external peer review. GPs were reluctant to take part because they questioned the value of participation over existing models for getting feedback internally. There was a limited understanding of the concept and purpose of external peer review and some distrust of the host educational provider and how the information would be used. GPs also placed limited value on the topics discussed and their relevance to routine clinical practice or professional appraisal. In short, they resisted because they did not trust the process, the organisations involved or the potential value.

Incentives

Research in England explored barriers to improving specialised dental care. NHS remuneration was identified as a significant barrier because it led to a time–cost tension. It was argued that the NHS system rewards volume rather than quality and this may create a perverse incentive against improvement. A lack of comprehensive undergraduate and postgraduate education and training about improvement and about substantive topics was also suggested as a barrier. This is another example of how barriers can span multiple fields. In this study incentives were discussed in the context of individual reimbursement, but they are also a system-wide issue. It highlights that policy and regulation decisions can have individual impacts, which in turn influence practitioners’ motivation to take part in improvement initiatives.

Organisational barriers

The key barriers related to organisational or team factors identified in studies in the NHS included the following:

Culture

  • Lack of culture of improvement.,
  • Perceived culture of blame.
  • Lack of priority placed on improvement.
  • Risk averse culture and prioritisation of defensive practices.
  • Rituals that undermine improvement.,

Leadership

  • Lack of strong leadership and clear shared vision for improvement, including at board level.,,,,
  • Hierarchical leadership structure rather than transformational or engaging leadership.
  • Undue focus on either clinical or managerial leadership.
  • Not ensuring leadership and autonomy for improvement at multiple organisational levels.
  • Lack of accountability for improvement.

Focus

  • Resistance to things imposed externally rather than perceived organisational needs.,,,
  • Limited focus on person-centred services.
  • Attempting to localise everything rather than drawing on regional or national expertise.

Resources

  • Lack of organisational management time or capability.
  • Staff shortages and use of agency staff.
  • Lack of dedicated funding.
  • Systems not set up to support integration of improvement into existing processes.,

Information

  • Lack of information sharing within organisations and teams.
  • Insufficient use of the data available.,,
  • Insufficient information and analysis systems.,
  • Lack of, or inflexible, feedback structures in place.

Timing

  • Wanting to see ‘quick wins’ rather than allowing improvement time to embed.,
  • Not allowing dedicated staff time for training or implementation of improvement.,,

Engagement

  • Insufficient engagement of professionals and patients.

Examples of studies that identified barriers related to organisational issues

Leadership and culture

A three-year evaluation of 16 integrated care pilots found that barriers to implementation included leadership, organisational culture, information technology, clinician involvement and the availability of resources. These are similar to the things identified in international literature. However, this study also identified different barriers such as the presence or absence of personal relationships between leaders in different organisations, the scale of planned activities, governance and finance arrangements, support for staff in new roles and organisational and staff stability.

Organisational processes

A study of six acute hospitals in England explored implementing ‘reasonably adjusted services’ for people with intellectual disabilities. The research found that most changes did not result in consistent provision of adjustments and that improvements often depended on the knowledge, understanding and flexibility of individual staff and teams. This meant that improvement was haphazard throughout the organisations. Barriers included a lack of effective information systems, lack of staff understanding of what may be needed, lack of clear lines of responsibility and accountability for implementing change and no allocation of funding and resources.

Resources

A study of setting up NHS Health Checks in pharmacies to provide cardiovascular screening for 40 to 74 year olds found that challenges included IT, developing confident and competent staff and ensuring that there were enough people using the new services (volume and flow). The researchers suggested that delivering improvement can be a complex process, requires a great deal of planning and can incur higher than expected costs.

Information

Information gathering and audit may be part of the improvement cycle. A study of doctors’ perspectives of taking part in a national clinical audit programme found that the main barriers were lack of a common vision and poor communication, which contributed to poor inter-professional relationships and a perceived culture of blame. Disseminating data improved engagement.

Links between organisational, structural and individual factors

Interviews with 113 health and social care professionals from two mental health trusts and eight adult community mental health teams found that barriers to improvement included specific leadership styles and models of decision making, blurred professional role boundaries, generic working and lack of training for role development. At a more structural level, barriers included inadequate staffing levels, high caseloads, excessive administrative duties and incompatibility of information technology (IT). The researchers concluded that organisational issues such as team support, IT provision, administrative support and investment in leadership education would be useful.

System-wide barriers

System-wide or contextual barriers have been a particular area of study for UK research. The key system-related barriers to improvement identified in studies in the NHS included:

Consistency

  • Lack of stability in the system, meaning time is spent on reorganisation and reconfiguration rather than targeted improvement.
  • Conflicting priorities, perverse incentives and guidelines from regulatory authorities.,
  • Differences in the priorities of policy makers versus professionals and patients.

Drivers

  • Perceived lack of strong policy context or guidelines for improvement.,,
  • Political rhetoric.
  • Perceived ‘interference’ from regulatory or policy bodies.
  • Lack of incentives or funding for improvement.,
  • Lack of champions or early adopters.

Structures

  • Fragmentation and silos across services and sectors.,,
  • Lack of structures for disseminating learning quickly and routinely.,

Relationships and roles

  • Lack of relationships between organisations or with policy makers and commissioners.,,
  • Strong professional pressure groups.

Below are some examples from individual studies.

Examples of studies that identified barriers related to system characteristics

Structural integration

A study in England explored how telemedicine interventions were set up and embedded into routine NHS practice. Contextual factors were found to play a significant role. Potential barriers included not having a positive link with a local or national policy-level sponsor, lack of structural integration of new processes and instability of organisational structures. Telemedicine improvements were found to flounder if they were not embedded into professionals’ ways of working or supported by change champions and multidisciplinary teams. Political, organisational and ‘ownership’ factors were influential.

Existing structures

A study of two regions in Scotland and two regions in England explored issues with improving care pathways and shifting care into the community. The research found that shifts in activity from secondary to primary care were small, non-strategic, piecemeal and not directly underpinned by resource shifts. Barriers identified included the immobility of existing resources, concerns about the appropriateness of shifting care, weak incentives and a lack of cooperation between key stakeholders. The researchers suggested that there was a fundamental tension because those to whom power was devolved were neither equipped, nor of the mind, to undertake the strategic resource shifts needed to underpin improvement.

Incentives

A study undertaken in the 1990s explored how improving the uptake of day surgery in NHS hospitals depended on managerial and clinical incentives. At this time a high proportion of surgeons regarded day surgery as clinically acceptable for a wide range of procedures, but a lack of facilities and funding incentives limited adoption. The researchers concluded that improvement is more likely to flourish in the NHS where managerial and clinical incentives coincide. They argued that there are likely to be most barriers when administrative or performance management goals are at odds with clinical and wellbeing aims.

Priorities

When interviewed about barriers to improving quality in general practice, NHS managers from England identified the absence of an explicit strategic plan, competing priorities for attention of the commissioners, sensitivity of health professionals, lack of information due to poor quality clinical data, lack of authority to implement change, unclear roles and responsibilities of managers within the organisations and isolation from other organisations facing similar challenges.

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