Leading by Stepping Back:Social Movements in

Healthcare

William LilleyDr Helen Smith

Introductions

Plan for the workshop

• Introductions and plan for the session

• Possible ice breaker?

• Why social movements? Setting the scene…

i. Definition, why they differ and characteristics

ii. Social Movements in Health Care Context (examples)

iii. How organisations are harnessing them… QI at scale

• Zero Suicide Collaborative: Helen Smith (25mins)

• Summary thoughts

• How can we harness Social Movements in the South West

• Q and platforms such as LIFE

Troubling times…

Troubling times…

Attack of the wicked

problem

“Scaled social movements are mission critical to the future of

the NHS” Simon Stevens

A health social movement is a persevering people-powered effort to

promote or resist change in the experience of health or the systems

that shape itNesta

So what's a social movement…?

“Large Scale Change is fuelled by passion that comes from the fundamental belief

that there is something very different and better that is worth striving for?”

Leading Large Scale Change (2011)

NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement

Social Movement Characteristics

A Social Movement

Radical action

Transformativeevents

Collective

Voluntary & social

Organised & spontaneous

Political

Conflict

Durable

“Has significant social change ever been achieved in the face of massive institutional opposition? The answer seems clear: Only in the face of such opposition has significant social change been achieved.”

Examples of social movements

• Abolition of slavery

• Civil rights movement

• Votes for women

• Environmental movement

• Peace movement

• Anti-apartheid

• Animal rights

• Temperance movement

• Anti-poverty

• Disability movement

• Gay rights

Social Movements in Healthcare

• Public health movement

• Anti-smoking movement

• Against unethical research: Ethics committees

• Evidence based medicine

• Open access publishing

• Keep our NHS public

• Fluoridation

• Antifluoridation

Save Millom Hospital

Men’s Shed Australia

“Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy”.

What happens next?

“The NHS can’t initiate or manage social movements to achieve certain ends. However,

it can create the conditions to nurture them and to engage productively with them….”

Key takeaways

• Movements emerge

• Sparked by conflict & conversation

• High risk

• All movements decline

• Importance of ‘framing’

• Stories grow social movements, not evidence