WBS Building

Warwick Business School recently showcased its leading healthcare research at the Chartered ABS Research Exhibition in Edinburgh. The theme for this year’s exhibition, which took place alongside the Annual Research Conference, was ‘Solutions for a prosperous and fair society.’ Following a competitive submission process, Warwick Business School was selected as one of nine exhibitors, and highlighted key research undertaken within the Organising Healthcare Research Network (OHRN).

The OHRN is a research network at Warwick Business School that is focused on healthcare organisation and management research, and is concerned with the impact on policy and organisational practice. The network brings together staff from many specialisms to work on a diverse range of studies including patient safety, workforce development, knowledge mobilisation and innovation, and IT and telehealth.

Several key pieces of OHRN research were on display at the Chartered ABS Research Exhibition, including research carried out by Professors Graeme Currie and James Hayton and Dr Nicola Burgess that examined the role of hybrid middle managers in mobilising organisational knowledge and learning within the elderly care service pathway. Their research directly resulted in halving the rate of inpatient falls, preventing over 100 hip fractures and saving 60 lives.

Also on display was research carried out by experts at Warwick Business School and the Universities of Bristol and Seville that revealed that management consultants are worsening NHS services despite the average NHS trust spending around £1.2 million a year for their expertise. Data was collected from 120 hospital trusts in England and compared against the reference costs index, which is used to measure the efficiency of NHS providers and to set prices for NHS-funded services in England. Analysis of this and patient outcomes confirmed that the cost of external consultancy did not bring about improved services.

 

Speaking on the Research Exhibition, Heike Groessl, Impact and Environment Manager at WBS, said: “Having had the opportunity to showcase OHRN’s research at the CABS conference and to talk to a wider public audience about how WBS research can benefit the healthcare sector and society as a whole has been incredibly rewarding.”

To see Warwick Business School in action at the Research Exhibition, have a look at the CABS video of the event. 

You can read more about Professor Graeme Currie, Professor James Hayton and Dr Nicola Burgess’s life-saving research in Professor Currie’s CORE insights article. Or, if you would like to find out more about the role of management consultants within the NHS, why not hear more from Professor Ian Kirkpatrick?