The NHS is full of people who are highly motivated by helping people and who share the overarching goal to prevent ill health. However, there are many examples of NHS plans and initiatives that did not manage to achieve all of their objectives. Why is this?

Visions, programmes and plans often seem to make sense, but don’t always account for how people make decisions in real life, when they deviate from purely rational choices. Behavioural science offers insight into the psychological, cognitive and emotional factors that influence decision-making.

When we make decisions, we are all affected by human factors, such as our emotions and past experiences. And we all use heuristics – rules of thumb that simplify decision-making and problem-solving, but that can lead to unhelpful biases. These affect:

• what we pay attention to and the information we base our decisions on
• how we analyse and interpret information to make decisions
• how we plan to implement our decisions.

This session will cover:

• an introduction to behavioural science and human factors affecting organisational decision-making
• how human factors affect the NHS’s ability to change
• some practical techniques to improve organisational decision-making and facilitate positive change.