Topic: Leadership

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

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

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