by Somain Verma, Ophthalmology Registrar (ST2), Northampton General Hospital.
Clinical leadership is more important than ever. With an ever-increasingly burdened health system, we must assure that appropriate resources and systems are in place to maintain an effective and efficient health service.
Leadership and management are a core principle highlighted in the NHS Long Term Plan, and this was at the core of the Faculty of Medical Leadership and Management Conference for 2024. This year, the University of Manchester was the gracious host, and as I made my way up to Manchester Piccadilly on a crisp Tuesday morning, I wondered what solutions and insights this event could bring in aid of our strapped NHS.
This was the first in-person conference for the FMLM since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, and there was much excitement from the delegates. The tagline for the two-day event was "Improving patient centred-care through inclusive clinical leadership." Delegates were able to attend keynote talks such as ‘The future of leadership’ and ‘Creating a sustainable healthcare workforce’, alongside being able to choose from a variety of engaging breakout sessions.
As mentioned in the opening remarks, the FMLM was created in 2011 with support of the Royal Colleges. Their goal is to support the standard of patient care through improved inclusive medical leadership.
Following this, we had a star-studded panel offering their take on integrated care: Professor Stephen Powis, the National Medical Director of NHS England, Professor Dame Helen Stokes-Lampard, previous Chair of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, and Sir Simon Wessely, a Fellow of the Royal Society.
Prof Powis highlighted the benefit the NHS has wrought within healthcare since its inception. However, despite these improvements, recent years have been fraught with more difficulty. An ageing population, increased disease burden, health inequality, and the Covid-19 pandemic have all had its impact on the health of the UK. Despite spending around 12% of GPD on health (ranked 12th internationally) [1], the UK is faced with many issues. Powis lamented five things that should have focus, including prevention, organisation and collaboration, technology, social care and the three e's – education, expectations and empowerment.
Dame Stokes-Lampard discussed the importance of social prescribing, and the vital role within universal personalised care. Within ophthalmology, we are often faced with patients with multiple complex needs, and personalised holistic care could be side-lined. This talk prompted clinicians to consider a personalised social approach to patient care in the future.
Another highlight was the session titled ‘The NHS needs managers and leaders.’ The anecdotal paradigm is that we are inundated with managers and leaders, who offer little to the NHS. But Professor Kirkpatrick from the University of York highlighted that only 2% of the NHS workforce are managers, compared to 9.5% in the UK workforce as a whole [2]. He discussed how the current role of managers can be likened to maintaining the service, as opposed to innovation and improvement, and that this warrants consideration.
A crowd favourite talk was from Professor Mark Britnell, award-winning author of Human: Solving the Global Workforce Crisis in Healthcare, who has worked within the healthcare systems of 81 countries. He explained that by 2030, there will be an estimated 18-million-person worker shortage in healthcare globally [3]. An interesting concept discussed was how implementing models of care to the healthcare system can increase results. Underutilised models include the use of technology (including robotics and artificial intelligence), increasing focus on primary care, integrating care, as well as using clinical improvement science to drive results and standardisation. He has implemented these models in projects such as the Buurtzorg Project – an organisation focusing on nurse-led holistic community care, with a resulting 40% increase in productivity and outcomes [4].
So, what did I take away from the conference? Overall, this event sparked many musings in my brain. It allowed me to view the healthcare we provide with a wider framing point, and gave me careful considerations about the future of the NHS and the service we provide. It has made me aware that there are more varied aspects to consider within a health service alongside the direct care provided.
