Health Care and Change Management in the Context of Prisons: Rapid reviews of the literature in two parts

Abstract

First paragraph: The literature review of factors promoting or inhibiting change finds that there is no unified science of change management and that there is a general lack of empirical evidence across the board about change management in all domains of human industry. - We have proposed a general five-level evidence framework that can be used to categorise broadly the quality of evidence for and commission research into prison management. - We argue that proposals for change should be subjected to a formal decision making process in keeping with good practice in decision making in which alternatives to the proposed change are also evaluated. - We find that change can occur to structures, processes, outcomes and people (table 6) in planned or unintended ways, gradually or radically. - Despite the lack of empirical evidence we find that there is a broad consensus on the features of successful change management approaches.