Just published: An independent review of health and adult social care leadership
The Health and Social Care Secretary Sajid Javid has welcomed the publication of an independent review of health and adult social care leadership, led by General Sir Gordon Messenger and Dame Linda Pollard - and, in what will be the biggest shake-up in health and social care leadership in a generation, is accepting all seven transformative recommendations they have put forward.
Strengthening leadership and embedding the best examples of management is vital in ensuring every pound of investment is well spent, with the government investing a record amount in health and care services over the next three years to tackle the Covid backlog.
The review team met over a thousand passionate front-line staff, managers and leaders across health and social care to hear their views which informed their recommendations for improving the skills of all leaders and managers and putting the right culture, training and incentives in place.
While it recognised the current pressures faced by the workforce and identified many examples of inspirational leadership, it found overall there was a lack of consistency and coordination - in particular that there has developed over time an "institutional inadequacy" in the way that leadership and management is trained, developed and valued.
Aimed at ensuring the right leadership is in place at all levels, the recommendations seek to ensure services can deliver the best possible care, tackle the Covid backlog and address the disparities the pandemic has exposed across the country.
They include:
- Targeted interventions on collaborative leadership and a unified set of values across health and social care
- Action to improve equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI)
- Consistent management standards delivered through accredited training
- A simplified, standard appraisal system for the NHS:
- A new career and talent management function for managers:
- More effective recruitment and development of Non-Executive Directors (NEDs)
- Encouraging top talent into challenged parts of the system
This report will be followed by a delivery plan with clear timelines on implementing agreed recommendations.