Innovation (as disruptive as possible) and change (radical, transformational, breakthrough) are the buzzwords of the decade. You want better health care? Then make something new and different happen. If you work in the NHS you will know that it funds a mushrooming industry of change agents, change programmes, change frameworks, and whole-system change events hosted by indefatigably smiling change facilitators. An embarrassing amount of money is passed to management consultants in the process.
Some of us make a living studying the successes and failures (of which the latter probably outnumber the former) of this transformational change industry. The statistics are apocryphal but perhaps not wildly out: it is said that around 60% of all healthcare change efforts, and 80% of those involving a new IT system, fail (with or without the input of said consultancies). Why? If I can make over my living room, why can’t I introduce a new, evidence-based, and NICE-endorsed care pathway in the clinical specialty of which I am the designated lead …