Practice based enquiry, practice transformation and service redesign

Being a health care practitioner can be as challenging as it is rewarding, given the many attendant accountabilities practitioners face and the increasing complexity of the systems and environments within which they work. Due to these everyday challenges, and in part also due to increasing fiscal pressures on
health service providers, the orientation of specific services can “drift” over time as a result of delimited practice(s). In particular, the original philosophical underpinning of the service may become obscured which can affect negatively both practitioners in terms of satisfaction, and the people they serve in terms of the quality and foci of the service they receive. In this case study, I present a description of how a team of occupational therapists working in a forensic hospital in Australia used a practice-based enquiry approach alongside the creation of a community of practice scholars to redesign and transform their practice. Within the case study, I discuss practice-based enquiry and community of practice scholars’ processes and outcomes, present supporting narrative data which highlight the experiences and learnings of the team, and reflect on the challenges and advantages of using a practice-based enquiry approach for those who may be considering using it for the first time.