But how do these combinations of activities change? And why do they stay the same? These are our starting questions in exploring how hospital life has changed over time. In order to tackle these questions, we begin with complexes of practices and not ‘a practice’. This starting point reflects other contributions in this volume and echoes recent developments in theories of practice that are moving away from a focus on the constitution and trajectories of specific practices to an emphasis on the interdependencies, connections and configurations that are central to the constitution, reproduction and transformation of social life.