Bending the curve towards a positive, collaborative leadership culture in healthcare

By Professor Mayur Lakhani CBE

FMLM Chair and Founding Senior Fellow

I hope you enjoyed the conference last week and feel inspired and energised by what you heard. I learned a lot, which has supported my leadership development as a GP working in an integrated care system.

Whatever your role in healthcare, I know you are working extremely hard in challenging circumstances, particularly in the context of a post-Covid world, and I want to thank you. This is a big moment for us all as we deal with backlogs, economic breakdown, the crisis in mental health, and the increased threat to our health from climate change as we attempt to restore our services. This is a demanding and vital task in tough times to ensure our patients and staff have all the support they need. Yet we also know that many good things are happening which we must discuss and share in fora such as our conference.

As Chair of FMLM, I have two key points at this stage:

Firstly, we must accelerate the opportunities and support for high-quality clinical leadership to enable transformation. I am sure you will agree that clinical leadership has been central to quality, safety, and a positive culture where good things are happening throughout our healthcare systems. Our conference focused on the know-how needed to achieve this.

Secondly, we must focus on results and impact. The job of leaders is to make things happen; to get things done. This is particularly important for patients and communities that are overlooked, to tackle health inequalities, and to increase the support for front-line clinicians to counter invidious moral distress experienced when they cannot provide the high-quality and safe care needed because of systemic and cultural constraints.

Together, I think we can get there. It will take time, but already we are seeing that it is possible to bend the curve through the great and incisive use of leadership.

I urge you to be the best collaborative leader that you can be. Make things happen for patients during these difficult times and support your clinical and non-clinical colleagues to deliver the best care through cultural change.

We shared and learned a great deal at our international conference last week. We will continue that collaborative learning curve through our national in-person conference at the University of Manchester on 28 and 29 March 2023. So, please save the dates and join us to keep that inspiration and energy going!

If there is anything further I, or FMLM, can do to support your leadership, which we are not doing currently, please get in touch.