Learning across occupational and organisational boundaries within Treatment Centres: the implications for clinical quality and patient safety

• Start date: 01 February 2008
• End date: 30 April 2010

Healthcare providers are increasingly encouraged to become ‘learning organisations’. This involves sharing information across organisational and occupational boundaries to foster new ways of working and to enhance service quality and safety. The study aims to understand the opportunities for and implications of enhanced learning within Independent Sector Treatment Centres (ISTCs). ISTCs work in partnership with mainstream NHS services to offer scheduled and streamlined care pathways that give patients greater choice and convenience. The objective of the study is to investigate whether ISTCs, because of their service arrangements, offer new opportunities for learning across occupational and organisational boundaries and the implications of learning for clinical quality and safety. The study combines quantitative and qualitative methods. Social network analysis will be used to map the formal and informal interactions through which knowledge is shared and learning encouraged within a number of ISTC sites. This will be followed by in-depth ethnographic research within one ISTC to understand more about the socio-cultural and organisational factors that influence learning. The study will make a unique contribution to knowledge around issues of learning and assist policy-makers and healthcare providers to enhance learning around clinical quality and safety.