Auditing senior management communication practices in the NHS: a regional study

Increasingly, organizations are being confronted with significant strategic change. This process can only be managed effectively if human resource implications, including how effectively managers and staff communicate with each other, are taken into account. This paper outlines how communication audits provide managers with insights into patterns of communication within their organizations. The nature of communication audits are briefly delineated and explained. An investigation from within the National Health Service (NHS) is offered, which illustrates how a communication audit focusing on relationships between regional, district and local levels of management illuminated patterns of communication between senior managers at these levels. This resulted in the development of an action plan for the improvement of communication practices. The generalizability of these findings to the NHS is discussed.