Bringing about innovative IT enabled change within organisations that have restricted funding and resources is a challenge currently facing hospitals in the UK National Health Service (NHS). This article explores an Action Research project which aimed to implement a Patient Flow Management System in an acute hospital in the North East of England. The project took place over a twelve month period and involved a number of stakeholders including nursing staff. The contribution of this paper is to recognise the importance of AR as an approach suitable for systems adoption and the need to ‘know your stakeholder’ and their culture especially when dealing with professional bodies.