Managers are being ‘re-educated’ after losing skills, says Mackey

Managers are having to be “re-educated” after losing skills in recent years, the chief executive of NHS England has said.

Speaking at the Medical Journalists’ Association’s annual lecture on Thursday, Sir Jim Mackey was asked whether he was satisfied with the calibre of managers in the NHS.

He said “generally people that work in the NHS really care about what they do” and that managers were working in highly challenging circumstances, and often in “really horrible jobs where all the risk is managed”.

But he also acknowledged a concern expressed by other NHS leaders that many managers had become “deskilled at some things”, in part due to the coronavirus pandemic and how systems have worked in the recovery period since then.

Sir Jim said: “We are having to re-skill [and] train people again in things like waiting list management, some stuff on flow and ED management, those sorts of things.

“So, they are being rebuilt, and people are being re-coached and re-educated.”

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Source: HSJ, 9 May 2025