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Although politicians are desperate for innovation, few are brave enough to talk about how difficult it is to shift people away from predictable patterns of behaving and from conforming cultures. There is a tendency in national government to think radical and act conservative. The Labour government, in its modernisation policies, appears to be genuine in its desire for social inclusion and real change, but the thinking about how to persuade people to engage with this process is ill thought out. The conventional modes of delivering legislation, programmes and partnerships too often ignore the need to involve staff and communities. Modernisation and change are dependent on new forms of people‐management. The report draws on MBS Change Centre audit and consultancy within local partnerships including the Health Action Zones and on research funded by the ESRC Management Innovation Programme. Concludes that the improvement process will only succeed if government’s incentives and managerial frameworks sustain people‐relationships in communities and in public sector organisations. Concludes also that there is a lack of leadership and “know‐how” in the public sector about how to achieve transformation and that policy makers need to focus on managing the transformation process.

The modernisation of mental health day services has been shaped by concerns about the social exclusion of people with enduring mental health problems. Initiatives have emphasised the use of mainstream facilities and an individualised approach. In contrast, service users have sought to safeguard opportunities for peer support in safe places. This participatory action research brought together service users, staff and others involved, to explore how these different views could be transformed into modernised services. The research took place in an outer London borough from 2003‐2007, using varied methods to explore social networking, including a visual method, action research groups and individual interviews. The research was designed and adapted to enable the involvement of people with different capacities and interests. Each stage generated findings for local modernisation, pointing to the importance of a safe space, service user knowledge of social and recreational activities and how self‐help groups develop and thrive. The final reconfiguration of local services reflected these research outcomes. Credible and useful outcomes can be achieved from collaborative research, allowing time and creating opportunities to shape interpretations of policy. Emerging initiatives are more likely to reflect service user perspectives and receive their support.

This article describes the results of a survey of adult mental health day service staff that explored their views and experiences of day service modernisation. While respondents acknowledged the positive aspects of service modernisation, they also believed that some people might find these changes harder to accept than others. Even though it can be a daunting prospect for some, based on the testimonies of the staff interviewed, the rewards associated with service modernisation outweigh the initial discomfort.

The National Day Services Modernisation Network was launched in January 2009 and is a collaboration between the Inclusion Institute (taking on the role previously held by the National Social Inclusion Programme), Mind, Rethink and Richmond Fellowship. The Network came about in recognition that many of those involved in modernising mental health day services were struggling with the same issues, often in isolation, and that there was a need for a forum to discuss and develop approaches to these issues.

Helen Bird and colleagues report on a small‐scale research project completed in west Yorkshire that examined the effects of the closure of a traditional sheltered workshop on those who attended. The closure was contentious, and the report questions the centrality accorded to ‘social exclusion’ as a central feature of current policy and practice. They argue for a more nuanced approach, which reflects both service users' actual preferences and current social realities.

This paper aims to trace and/or historicise modernisation as a conceptual framework from the antecedents to present times. It also highlights the recent and past attention provided to modernisation by business and economic history scholars to recognise their contribution.

This paper is a literature review which offers a sample of debate from foundational scholars regarding the concept of modernisation emanating from sociologists, historians and business scholars. To present an analysis of the recent activity from business scholars on modernisation from highly recognizable journals and draw conclusions about the conceptual framework regarding its future as a framing device, the authors used search functions in the Business Source Complete database and specific journal search engines.

A keyword search of modernisation produced 45 published articles from 2000 to 2016 in business-related history and Financial Times top 50 journals. The foremost recognizable aspect of modernisation, as a construct presented here, demonstrates the concept that aims to illustrate a basic and/or universal pattern of the social processes that primarily affect development (e.g. cultural, economic, organisational, ecological, technological, etc.). Moreover, the authors demonstrate that economic and business scholars helped identify and explain different types of modernisation, reinforce or connect specific characteristics to modernisation, develop modernisation as an index capable of measurement and provide evidence of modernisation as a rhetorical strategy.

Little to no previous studies on modernisation emphasised on the contribution of business and economic historians; instead, they focused on the contributions of sociologists and social historians. Business and management historians served as an important voice in the development of modernisation as a conceptual frame. They highlighted the opportunities that are available to position modernisation as a useful tool to predict the future of traditional and advanced organisations.

A postal survey and semi‐structured interviews were under taken with mental health day centre staff in two regions of England, investigating whether criticisms levelled at buildings‐based day services are justifiable. The majority of respondents agreed with recommendations outlined in From Segregation to Inclusion (National Institute for Mental Health in England/Care Services Improvement Par tnership, 2006), believing that mental health services should ideally be based in community locations. Respondents believed that this would help to challenge stigma, facilitate community integration, and provide service users with more oppor tunities. However, concerns were expressed as to the availability of mainstream facilities and whether this approach would be suitable for all service users. Suggestions on how day services could be improved included having access to reliable sources of funding, relaxing access criteria, and having greater service user involvement.

This article is an account of day service modernisation in Birmingham, describing how a range of innovative approaches to consultation with service users played a key role in reshaping day services in the city.

The modernisation of day services presents many challenges. One key challenge is not to abandon the people that these have traditionally supported. Peter Bates from the National Development Team makes a plea for a modernisation process that clearly recognises the needs of this important group.

Aims to focus on the imperative to achieve national activity and performance targets in secondary care as set out in the NHS Plan.

The paper is in the form of “notes from the front line” that are based on the experience of the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust (RCHT).

These include that planning needs to be understood as the means by which the NHS manages its future; that planning needs to become more technically and methodologically sophisticated; that planning is a process rather than a description of an organisational function; and that the NHS will only resolve the shortage of planning competencies once planning is seen as a management disciple.

On the basis of the feedback received from drafts of this paper, it is suggested that the conclusions drawn are generally applicable across the English health service.