NLC Clinical Leadership Fellowships

At least another 60 clinical fellows will be created this year as part of the National Leadership Council’s drive to improve clinical leadership, the Secretary of Health, Andrew Lansley announced at the recent NLC Clinical Leadership Fellows event.

The NHS, following on from the success of the fellowships programme, will continue to develop the next generation of leaders in many different clinical settings so that they can take a more central role in improving services for patients.

Andrew Lansley was speaking at the National Leadership Council (NLC) event where he met and listened to frontline clinicians and patient speaker Brinton Helliwell, focusing on leadership training and best practice. The event allowed the NLC’s current clinical fellows to share their thinking and spread good practice locally, regionally and nationally.

Secretary of State for Health, Andrew Lansley said: “Effective clinical leadership is crucial to the delivery of high quality healthcare in a modern NHS. We will be creating at least sixty more fellowships, open to all clinicians in all healthcare settings who will be able to improve services for patients, provide better value for money and drive out waste.

“Today was also an important opportunity to learn about local achievements, and listen to the views of those at the NLC event on the future of the NHS. It is essential that we listen to emerging leaders within healthcare professions so that any changes support stronger clinical leadership and effective education and training for the NHS workforce.”  

The new Fellowships will:

• Receive high quality on-the-job clinical leadership and management training underpinned by sharing best practice
• Provide opportunities for all clinicians to have bespoke leadership development linked to service improvements
• Promote multidisciplinary and collaborative learning across regions involving all healthcare professional groups
• Design a robust evaluation on improvements to the service alongside personal development that will provide the benchmark for future leadership programmes

A number of existing fellows are already leading on regional projects to improve quality standards and efficiency and are able to develop their leadership capability whilst delivering business critical improvements.

Fellows will be able to bring ideas and initiatives back to their organisations tailored to the needs of their healthcare staff. In this way everybody in the NHS will realise the benefits of how strong clinical leadership can directly lead to improved quality of care.

"Strong Clinical Leadership is not about taking clinicians away from the
care of their patients or turning people into bureaucrats. It's about
equipping people who have the closest relationship with patients the
greatest responsibility for the care of patients with the skills and the
authority to lead the service to maximise the results for patients"
Secretary Of State for Health, Andrew Lansley
 

"If teams are well motivated and respect their leaders and managers, the
teams work harder and they achieve a whole that's greater than the sum of
the parts. In short the service to the user improves and there is greater
satisfaction for all"
Brinton Helliwell, NLC Clinical Leadership "Making it Happen" event patient
speaker