Management training for the NHS
How much is the precarious nature of NHS finances down to poor management? And how much of that is a result of lack of training?
Sue Hodgetts, chief executive of the Institute of Healthcare Management thinks there ought to be more continuous assessment for management: ‘We can’t assume that, if people hit a target, they’re good managers.’ Noting that there is ‘no systematic central training for existing managers’, she called for more resources to meet the growing demand for new management skills, brought about by the rapid changes to the health service in recent years.
David Field, NHS Account Director at Training Synergy, agrees: ‘Through our extensive work over the years in the NHS we are seeing more and more need for support with leading change than anything else.’ The emergence of PFI had also exposed a lack of business and communication skills. ‘We are talking about negotiation and contract management certainly, but there seems to be a fundamental lack of communication and people skills among some tiers of management – and if you cannot bring people with you, no change project will really work.’
A view supported by Michael Sobanja, NHS Alliance chief executive, who thinks primary care is ‘chronically over-administered and under managed.’ He thinks managers need ‘360-degree feedback’ from colleagues and the government. However no-one wants to see a centralised and uniform training function directed by Whitehall.
‘Greater decentralisation means responsibility for training is on individual organisations. It’s for those organisations to ensure that the staff working for them have the competence to do the job’ says Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital Foundation Trust chief executive Sir Jonathan Michael, who wants to see clinicians receive more structured training in management skills.
Niall Shanahan
Niall has over 12 years’ of professional training experience, designing and delivering training solutions to support management development, leadership programmes and technology upgrades, including bespoke IT and telecoms training. He also spent 4 years as a sales training manager for a leading training provider. As a result he has developed an acutely commercial appreciation of the training cycle and the need for genuinely consultative relationships with clients.
Blog date
13 June 2007
