Restructuring the Personnel Function: the Case of Nhs Trusts¹

Stephen Bach, who is Lecturer in Industrial Relations at the Warwick Business School and an Associate Fellow of its Industrial Relations Research Unit, examines the impact of the internal market in the NHS on the role, organisation and influence of the personnel function. He argues that personnel specialists have not been able to fulfil expectations of them and occupy a peripheral role within NHS trusts. This has occurred because of their limited involvement in corporate decision making, the difficulties of decentralising personnel practice and the absence of a strategic direction for the management of human resources at national level. In this context, he argues that the prospects for the personnel function and the potential for an integrated, long‐term approach to the management of staff in the NHS remain at best uncertain.