NHS Confederation - The Messenger Review of health and social care leadership: what must it address? (24 March 2022)

Summary

In October 2021 the UK Government launched a review of leadership in health and social care, led by former Vice Chief of the Defence Staff General Sir Gordon Messenger. In this article, the NHS Confederation - the membership organisation that brings together, supports and speaks for the whole healthcare system in England, Wales and Northern Ireland - looks at the key issues for NHS leadership that NHS Federation members would like to see addressed in Sir Gordon Messenger’s final report, expected to be published in April 2022.

Content

Key issues raised

• Certain core skills and behaviours should apply in any leadership context, and a light-touch national framework that provides a consistent approach to developing leaders needs to be created to support people to develop these.
• The review should emphasise the new operating environment the NHS is moving into through integrated care systems (ICSs) and place-based partnerships. The focus on integration and collaboration will require different leadership characteristics than those incentivised by a system driven by marketisation and competition.
• Establishing a culture of learning and improvement, with less emphasis on top-down performance management will be key to developing effective system leadership.
• The review must address the need to ensure greater diversity across NHS leadership. Progress has been made in some areas to improve levels of diversity, but there is still a long way to go. The review presents an opportunity to invest in current diverse talent management and succession planning, as at present the NHS is effectively squandering talent through lack of inclusion.
• NHS leaders will need to be actively involved in the implementation of the report’s recommendations, in order to ensure the best chance of achieving lasting improvements,