The implementation and evaluation of a job-share

Abstract

The Department of Health has acknowledged that the quality of health care delivery within the National Health Service (NHS) is closely associated with the quality of the employment practices in operation within the trusts. It is suggested that: ‘we will not get the best for patients unless we develop more family-friendly employment policies. They are essential to allow the NHS to make the best possible use of our resources as well as increasing the attractiveness of the NHS as an employer’ (NHS Consortium, 1998). Job sharing is an ideal way of fulfiling this proposal. This article reports on the implementation and evaluation of a recently introduced job-share in the Cornwall Macmillan Service. The authors conclude that job sharing can be successfully introduced in practice and that it may provide a valuable means of addressing some of the current manpower shortages within the NHS.