Support, wellbeing and leadership
There can be little doubt that a raft of issues concerning healthcare staffing, workforce and leadership are firmly on national agendas.
While Westminster has announced its aims for a “far-reaching review” of health and social care leadership in England[1] – to be undertaken while the Health and Social Care Bill progresses through Parliament – the Scottish government is finalising its five-year plan for the NHS and social care.
Scotland’s new five-year plan is expected to support and deliver its recovery plan[2], so it is anticipated that the five-year plan will rely on a new Centre for Workforce Supply being established to help address both the shortfall and wellbeing of healthcare staff. A National Wellbeing Programme is also being implemented in recognition that staff are increasingly too stressed and overworked to make use of the basic wellbeing support that has been on offer.
Speaking at a conference in Scotland focused on workforce support and wellbeing earlier this month, Professor Michael West CBE commented on the detrimental effect of extended hierarchies and the ‘command and control’ culture of our healthcare system[3]. He argued that the biggest challenge for the future of healthcare services is to move towards more team-based working and away from those cultures which are “utterly inappropriate for the workforce we have in health and care”.
Professor West's comments chime with the values and behaviours articulated in FMLM's Leadership and Management Standards for Medical Professionals, and, as Dr Paul Evans, FMLM Medical Director said recently: "High quality, collaborative leadership and management is crucial to high performing, successful healthcare cultures".
A recently circulated NHS leadership survey from England’s Leadership Academy[4] is timely. This offers an important opportunity to provide feedback both individually and collectively, on what is needed to develop as a good leader; particularly considering the current issues around staffing, the ongoing pandemic and workforce wellbeing. The survey is aimed at all working in the NHS in England, so we would urge as many doctors as possible to complete the survey to be sure the medical voice is heard.
FMLM’s annual conference with BMJ, Leaders in Healthcare, opens in three weeks’ time and, we would argue, is equally ‘timely’. The conference theme, Lead the Change: a reset for healthcare, could not be more pertinent in addressing the critical issues facing our healthcare systems.
We will begin on 8 November by looking at the challenges ahead with a panel debate involving medical leaders from all four nations of the UK. We will focus on how to support the wellbeing and recovery of our health and care workforce post-Covid, as well as how we can tackle the backlog of non-urgent care and address what good system leadership looks like.
We are looking to discuss openly, share insights and learn from the issues, explore the options and solutions, and provide inspiration, energy, and collaborative support to enable colleagues to lead our healthcare systems and valuable workforce from a safer, more sustainable position.
Hope to see you there!
[1] Government launches landmark review of health and social care leadership (2 October 2021), UK Government, accessed from https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-launches-landmark-review-of-health-and-social-care-leadership
[2] NHS recovery plan (25 August 2021), Scottish Government, accessed from https://www.gov.scot/publications/nhs-recovery-plan/pages/3/
[3] NHS ‘failing to meet core needs’ of staff (8 October 2021), accessed from https://healthandcare.scot/default.asp?page=story&story=2855
[4] NHS Leadership survey, NHS England and NHS Improvement (2021) accessed from https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/NHSLeadershipSurvey/