The Leadership Commitment for Junior Doctors in action - at Harrogate District Foundation Trust

FMLM launched the Leadership Commitment for Junior Doctors in September 2021, which outlines simple steps that organisations can take to improve the exposure of junior doctors, of all grades, to clinical leadership. Several organisations have already signed up.

Dr Sarah Quinn, Royal College of Physicians Chief Registrar at Harrogate and District Foundation Trust (HDFT), explains how the Trust approached the commitment and how it has already begun to deliver on the recommended actions, since signing up in September.

HDFT has been an early adopter of the FMLM Leadership Commitment for Junior Doctors and really embraced what it sets out to achieve.  The Trust’s leadership team are firm believers in leadership development of colleagues and were already looking for ways to engage junior doctors, whom they felt would bring immediate benefits to the organisation. Since the first meeting, our medical director has been a vocal advocate for the commitment. The positive culture around leadership development in the organisation has enabled us to hit the ground running in terms of implementing the commitment.

The commitment itself has a plethora of recommended actions, so where to start? In HDFT, we began by identifying our organisation’s Leadership Champion, one of our Deputy Medical Directors, and a trainee equivalent (our Chief Registrar).  As a partnership, with the backing of trust leaders, we have taken up the task of delivering on the commitment objectives. If an organisation already has leadership fellows, chief registrars or junior doctors interested in leadership development of colleagues, then linking them up with a leadership champion could be a great way to engage junior doctors in the co-delivery of the commitment.

Next, we began advertising leadership opportunities across the organisation, starting with suitable groups within the Trust’s governance structure and those led by members of the Trust’s executive. Once word got out that committees and groups were being joined by junior doctors, we started to get more requests than we could satisfy! This is testament to the positive leadership culture in the organisation, but also demonstrates the value that leaders within the organisation believe junior doctors can bring. Within two months of adopting the commitment, we have junior doctors attending governance meetings, education meetings and key trust level quality improvement initiatives and, importantly, they are being supported to use professional leave to attend these, rather than being asked to attend in their free time. This demonstrates a recognition from the organisation that contribution to leadership and management activities is as vital to an organisation’s productivity as the clinical roles junior doctors perform.

Alongside integrating junior doctors into the existing opportunities, we have established a body of junior doctors to lead on our own improvement priorities, named the ‘Doctor’s Engagement Group’.  This group has direct contact with the trust executive.

Reflecting on the effect of these simple actions, we have seen a growth of engagement from junior doctors and other colleagues within the organisation. We are enjoying the journey as momentum continues to build. 

We have had an impromptu Q&A session with our Chief Operating Officer, held our first Quality Improvement Forum and will be hosting our first Leadership Forum in November, where we will be joined by our Chief Executive Officer, Steve Russell.

So, what next? 

There is still so much we can do. By regularly returning to the blueprint offered by the commitment document we continue to tick off the criteria one by one and will ensure we revisit what we have already initiated to ensure it remains effective.  

The positive engagement, feedback and support from those within the organisation has enabled us to visualise the benefits of meaningful collective leadership in action. The FMLM Leadership Commitment is such a supportive tool to help us all deliver effective leadership development for our leaders of the future.