TRAIN DOCTORS TO MANAGE

One of the Dame's good friends sent her this fascinating report produced by six young NHS doctors...

Such common sense from the coal face

Reform bulletin: An NHS leadership team for the future   RESEARCH   |   EVENTS   |   CONTACT US   |   WEDNESDAY 11 NOVEMBER 2015

Yesterday Reform published An NHS leadership team for the future. The report is available here. The report, written by six young NHS doctors, recommends that medical students should learn how to be managers. In a foreword to the report, Sir Bruce Keogh, National Medical Director for NHS England, argues that, “having clinicians in leadership roles is as important to patient care as being a professor in medicine, surgery or primary care”. The authors are four junior NHS doctors and two medical students. They argue that the Francis Inquiry identified “professional disengagement” by senior clinical staff as a key contributing factor to the tolerance of poor-quality care. They point to an international body of evidence showing clinician leaders can play a key role in improving care quality and changing NHS services. In his foreword, Sir Bruce Keogh says: “In recognising the leadership and management potential of junior doctors, the UK is well placed to draw on a major pool of latent and willing talent.” In a second foreword, Sir Hugh Taylor, Chair of Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, writes: “… for some reason clinicians in our system have, too often, been encouraged to see leadership and management as a separate ‘dark art’ from which they are excluded and, too often, despise. Disengagement has, sometimes disastrously, been the result. I think the authors of this report are right to diagnose a systemic failing in the NHS to break through this barrier. In particular, I strongly welcome and endorse the trenchant call for existing training programmes to deal systematically with change management and improvement methodologies.” The report’s key recommendations are: Medical schools must integrate management training into undergraduate curricula: “Medical schools nationwide should accelerate implementation of healthcare management options into undergraduate curricula” (page 53). The NHS should provide a career path for doctors who wish to pursue clinical leadership or management: “The career path for clinicians with leadership aspirations is often unclear. If leadership programmes are to be effective, they must support those participating in them to identify the best way to pursue a career that develops their interests. Physicians have traditionally followed a career that develops their interests. Similar pathways, however, do not exist for those wishing to pursue careers with a leadership or management focus” (page 57). The NHS should develop a national programme for emerging clinical leaders: “The formation of NHS Improvement presents an opportunity for a nationally coordinated process to train and place emerging clinical leaders to support quality improvement within provider organisations…There is a need for a single NHS clinical leadership talent management pipeline” (page 56-57).