Communities of Influence

CRC Press

Dedicated and hard-working staff at all levels of large healthcare organisations can be frustrated by a perceived inability to influence healthcare priorities > Dedicated and hard-working staff at all levels of large healthcare organisations can be frustrated by a perceived inability to influence healthcare priorities. One way of enabling such practitioners to shape and improve services is to bring them together in 'communities of influence'. These are informal groups or networks of committed people who meet regularly to share experiences, develop a collective voice and influence policy and practice at local and national levels. Such 'bottom-up' approaches to change can complement the more conventional management mechanisms widely employed today. Communities of Influence tells the story of how a prominent UK non-profit organisation (Macmillan Cancer Support) has engaged both professionals and patients over the past two decades to improve cancer care. It will stimulate managers and.