Buddies and Mergers: Decentring the Performance of Healthcare Provider Partnerships

Inter-organisational partnerships such as mergers and buddying are being promoted as a way to improve the performance of hospital and community services in the English NHS. The purpose of this chapter is to critically reflect on such approaches to public sector improvement with a decentred analysis of three inter-organisational collaborations across NHS providers. Through its aim to move beyond techno bureaucratic understandings of partnership structures and functions, the chapter reveals how situated agents navigate complex and contradictory narratives of quality and service improvement in the context of increasing cost constraints and efficiency savings.