Main description:

The book takes as its starting point the crisis of healthcare in the UK: impossible health targets managed through command and control management and a stomach-churning rise in racism, whistleblowing and victimisation in the NHS. The use of nationally set productivity targets combined with austerity cuts have increasingly put clinical best-practice into direct conflict with funding. Health targets have become politically controlled, and performance has become a cynical exercise in ticking boxes, cascaded within trusts and bulldozed through frontline services. This has led directly to a precarious system of employment relations, subject to the continual restructuring of services rather than the goal of creating functioning interdisciplinary teams that stand a chance of capturing clinical excellence.

This book is written for workers and managers who are on the frontline of the battle for decent healthcare. The content of this book is based on the 'ordinary' expertise of the people who are actually surviving it and helpful ideas about making the best out of a bad lot.

Surviving Work in Healthcare will be of interest to healthcare professionals and anyone working on the frontline of healthcare as well as students of management, human resources and psychology.

Contents:

Preface Chapter 1. Understanding Healthcare Systems Chapter 2. Start where you are Chapter 3. Precarious Work Chapter 4. Precarious Workers Chapter 5. Walk the Line Chapter 6. Groups and Gangs Chapter 7. How to make friends and influence people Chapter 8. Making the best out of a bad lot Chapter 9. Helpful Stuff for Human Beings