A national centre has been set up to train new generations of NHS, public health and social care leaders in a bid to improve patient care.
Plans for the NHS Leadership Academy were unveiled by the secretary of state for health, Andrew Lansley, in July last year, and its aim is to train doctors, nurses, health professionals and managers from across the NHS.
It will also work with public health and social care practitioners as well as those local authorities, where health and wellbeing boards are deemed key to improving health and care outcomes.
NHS chief executive, Sir David Nicholson, said that the organisation would be critical to delivering the strategic shift in leadership required by the NHS over the years ahead.
“The ethos is simple. NHS success is dependent on great leadership right across the service, across clinicians and managers. Great leaders create working climates where people working with them feel engaged, empowered and satisfied," he said.
These people, in turn, have a direct and positive impact on patients’ experiences and their health outcomes. Therefore, "everyone working for, with or on behalf of the NHS has a crucial role to play in this, as we focus on our purpose of improving health outcomes for our patients," Nicholson added.
Because health, social care and public health all faced "huge challenges", leaders across all of these disciplines must be able to work in an integrated way to ensure that people have a consistently good service experience. "Developing outstanding leadership has never been more important than now,” he said.
As of this month, Jan Sobieraj, current managing director of the NHS and social care workforce, will act as the Academy’s interim MD and the organisation expects to appoint a small core team of staff over the next three months.
It will be based in Leeds, owned by the NHS and will be steered by a programme board, which will bring together senior members of the Academy with representatives from different partner organisations. The body also unveiled a new website, which includes video stories from some existing NHS clinical and managerial leaders about their work and its impact on the NHS and patients.
