The right leadership is critical to the transformation of health services. Both leadership and quality improvement are high on the agenda, but we need a clearer link between the two. We define improvement leadership as – with others – initiating, managing and creating a vision and culture for improving quality of care and designing, producing and delivering this vision in expert ways.
Leaders from across the NHS need to develop skills and knowledge to improve the quality of care. This requires a different skill set to delivering improvement on the front line and to date there has been little focus on identifying and describing this. We have been bringing together the knowledge bases and learning of leadership and improvement to inform the emergent debate about what improvement leaders need to do and how they can be developed.
Case studies
-
Learning international lessons in quality improvement
Jason Leitch was a Quality Improvement Fellow in the USA in 2005. He is now helping lead the Scottish Patient Safety Alliance in overseeing Scotland’s first national patient safety programme.
-
Changing prescribing behaviour in Shropshire
Tracy Savage is a Health Foundation Leadership Fellow who uses NICE guidance to advise GPs in Shropshire on appropriate prescribing practice.
-
Redesigning ambulance services
Our Leadership Fellows scheme aims to develop individuals who have the potential to become the future leaders of healthcare. Alison Walker has been working on projects to redesign Yorkshire ambulance services to deliver faster and higher quality care for patients.
Publications
-
The Health Foundation’s position statement on effective leadership development
This report seeks to deepen our understanding of the nature of those leadership development interventions that are most likely to develop the skills and competences associated with quality improvement.
-
Developing leaders to improve patient care
Developing leaders to improve patient care is a statement about what The Health Foundation has learnt about leadership.
-
Leading lights
This briefing describes how The Health Foundation is improving the quality of care for patients through leadership development schemes for individuals and teams.
Current activities
-
Clinician Scientist Fellowship Scheme
A prestigious award supporting talented medical professionals to pursue academic research delivered in partnership with the Academy of Medical Sciences
-
GenerationQ
GenerationQ is a leadership development programme designed to transform quality in UK healthcare
-
Harkness/Health Foundation Fellowships
The aim of the Harkness/Health Foundation fellowship is to encourage and support healthcare practitioners from managerial and clinical backgrounds to participate in the Harkness Fellowship programme, run by The Commonwealth Fund of New York.
Features
-
Leading from the front
The NHS is characterised by its complexity and reliance on large numbers of people to achieve aims that span from an individual patient to a whole population. Tony Bell discusses the role of leadership.
-
Looking for trouble!
Chief Executive Stephen Ramsden describes the work of the trust with the Safer Patients’ Initiative, to Jenny Kowalczuk, News and Features Editor, www.saferhealthcare.org.uk
Latest news
-
Dr Stephen Till wins WAO Award
Dr Stephen Till, Clinician Scientist Fellow and Specialist Registrar at Imperial College London, has just won the biennial World Allergy Organisation (WAO) Henning Løwenstein Research Award for research in allergy.
-
Leadership fellowship holders awarded for innovative joint working
Isabel Skypala and Stephen Till have won the Joint working between allied health professionals and healthcare scientists award at the UK Awards for Allied Health Professionals and Healthcare Scientists.
-
Health Foundation Fellow offered Chair of Experimental Pathology
Professor Gareth Thomas, a Health Foundation Clinician Scientist Fellow, has been offered the Chair of Experimental Pathology at Southampton Medical School and plans to take up the position in May.