Team working: a report from the Society of British Neurological Surgeons

Despite the obvious advantages of team-working these early pilot studies have provided an opportunity to see how difficult it is to formalize this concept in the current neurosurgical environment. The team approach and the patient database have often demonstrated the problems of patient management due to lack of resources, insufficient staff and pressure to deliver volume, rather than quality with inadequate levels of staff--precisely the criticism levelled at Bristol. If team working in neurosurgery is to succeed in developing quality standards for the continuity of patient care then the infrastructure has to be developed, support guaranteed and some aspects of culture within the service changed.