The transformation of nurses' work?

This paper offers a critical discussion of how current and planned changes in the labour process within the National Health Service (NHS), with particular reference to nursing as an occupational group, are likely to influence the industrial relations aspects of nursing management. An attempt is made to apply concepts developed within the wider sociology of work, to the reality of latter day nurses' experience. In this respect, the question will be addressed: do management approaches to the reorganization of work in health care settings constitute, or herald, an actual 'transformation' of nurses' work? The approach adopted places concern over the introduction of productivity or performance related pay, or the implementation of nursing skill-mix reviews within an analytic context which considers issues of control over working practices. As such, management and unions' responses to NHS Executive calls for increasing reorganization of nurses' work and remuneration structures may be illuminated by an understanding of this issue of control. This would entail a departure from simplistic analyses, focused solely upon narrowly defined efficiency concerns.