Integrated care ICS told it’s ‘top down’ and ‘lacks effective leadership’

An under-pressure integrated care system has been told it lacks “effective leadership” and is “too centralised and top-down” in a survey of partner organisations.

Only 10% of senior leaders said Greater Manchester ICS had the necessary leadership and skills to deliver on its priorities. And only 7% agreed it had “clear roles, effective leadership and efficient processes”, in a survey carried out over the summer.

The work commissioned by the ICB received responses from 156 senior leaders in the ICB, its providers, local authorities, place teams, primary care, social care and voluntary and community services in the patch.

Several described the system’s leadership as “too centralised and top-down”, with “the tension between centralised control at the GM level and local autonomy” sparking “the most significant numbers of qualitative feedback” to the work, according to an ICB board paper this month.

Some also described “bullying by senior leaders and smaller organisations being treated inequitably”.

“Recent restructures and upheavals” have “weakened” a “history of great partnership working in Greater Manchester”, the survey feedback summary adds.

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Source: HSJ, 29 October 2024