Research is crucial at this time - to establish the facts before we reach new conclusions

by Kirsten Armit

FMLM Chief Operating Officer and Research Lead

Over the past few years, research-based presentations and sessions have become an important part of the Leaders in Healthcare conference programme, supported by BMJ Leader. This year we have expanded the research stream with a series of live and pre-recorded presentations on recent research, presented by UK and international academic colleagues in partnership with medical and healthcare leaders.

This will be one of the best collections of medical leadership research ever delivered to a medical audience.

The conference sessions are being confirmed and will be available on the conference programme pages from next week. These will include sessions hosted by university business schools, BMJ Leader and the National Institute for Health Research along with input from organisational leaders and researchers in the UK, Australia, France and Africa. 

These sessions will provide opportunities to:

• understand what leaders do, how professionals navigate into careers in leadership and how medical leaders can contribute to organisational performance
• learn from experiences of leadership development and medical engagement
• gain insight into what leadership development approaches make a difference
• appreciate the role of leaders and leadership hip in supporting research
• hear about recent evaluations of ‘well-led’ and the impact of support to challenged organisations
• consider how clinical leaders have been impacted by and navigated Covid-19.

We encourage you to join, view and comment on these sessions throughout the conference.

Earlier this year FMLM launched its first research strategy which outlines our commitment to research and research evidence, in pursuit of FMLM’s primary objective of improving care for patients through good medical leadership. 

FMLM is now working with universities and academic colleagues on a range of research initiatives. We recently launched a research project with the Business School (formerly Cass) to understand more about doctors and leadership in the UK; the short survey which is central to this work is being widely promoted by FMLM as well as the BMA, the Academy and a range of medical royal colleges and faculties, for which we are grateful. This survey is open until end of November and we would encourage all doctors to respond - it will only take eight minutes - and ask those that do so to encourage their medical colleagues to do the same so we can understand as much as possible about doctors and leadership in the UK.

Further research is being planned for the forthcoming year and we welcome members and fellows’ input and feedback.