"Don’t let forms shape your practice": Lessons for Living, by Dr Neil Thompson

I have often encountered situations on training courses about report writing and record keeping where people say things like: ‘We can’t do that; the form won’t let us’.

Of course, forms are a way of recording and collating information and therefore have an important part to play.

However, recognizing the value of forms and allowing them to dictate our work practice are two different things.

If the forms help, that’s great, but if they are framed in such a way that they are unhelpful, shouldn’t we be changing the forms, rather than changing our practice to suit the form?

So, an important question to ask is: How do we get a form changed?

What are the feedback mechanisms we can use to let the appropriate people know that these tools (for that is what forms are) are not well suited to purpose and need to be revised?

The effort required to do this could be well repaid by the progress made and is certainly a better alternative to allowing forms (rather than our professional knowledge and values) to shape our practice.