24.05.12
Engagement improves NHS leadership
A new style of leadership in the NHS could improve patient care and create financial savings, a report by The King’s Fund suggests. It calls for leaders to move away from traditional forms of management towards a model based on engagement.
‘Leadership and engagement for improvement in the NHS’ posits that greater engagement with both patients and staff can lead to a better patient experience, fewer errors, stronger financial management, higher motivation and staff morale as well as a decrease in absenteeism and stress.
The new model would require action at all levels and a commitment to training and development, and the report urges trusts to resist cutting funding for this.
The NHS could reduce patient mortality by 2.4% by increasing engagement to the level of the top 20% of hospitals, and could save an estimated £150,000 simply by reducing absenteeism.
The study reads: “Engagement is not only a topic of academic interest; it has enormous practical significance. Put simply, organisations with more engaged clinicians and staff achieve better outcomes and experiences for the patients they serve.
“The changes needed in the NHS to implement the reforms must happen at scale and pace…Engaging staff and patients is not an optional extra, but essential in making change and improvement happen.”
Chris Ham, chief executive at The King’s Fund said: “Our review reveals a compelling business case for leadership based on stronger engagement between staff, clinicians and patients. Instead of making swingeing cuts to the number of NHS managers, our research suggests that a new style of leadership could significantly improve financial and service performance.
“The reformed NHS must leave behind the command and control culture that has dominated health policy in the last decade and develop leaders who can engage others to deliver further improvements in performance and patient care.”
To view the report, visit: www.kingsfund.org.uk/publications/leadership_review_12
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