Last week, Sian Thomas, director of NHS Employers, warned NHS managers to avoid the temptation of making quick savings by cutting back on jobs and said chief executives are concerned that the NHS may lack "enough staff with the right talent and skills to lead it through recovery".
Sian Thomas
The need for talent management at all levels of the organisation is highlighted in a briefing paper from NHS Employers, Talent for tough times: how to identify, attract and retain the talent you need .
The paper, and Thomas's comments, are a response to the leaked McKinsey report in September, which forecast huge job cuts – up to 137,000 jobs – in the NHS and are part of a strategy to maintain morale in the face of hard times.
"NHS Employers and the NHS Confederation are clear that slash and burn cuts are not the answer," says the paper. Instead, "a focus on developing talent at all levels will send the right message to staff".
One of the challenges will be retaining senior managers in the NHS during these exceptionally difficult times: not only will senior managers be steering health organisations through deep spending cuts, but they will be doing so when it is expected that the rest of the economy is likely to be coming out of the recession. Over the past year, the public sector has seemed a good option for many in the private sector, but the tables may well turn in the coming months.
The NHS needs to identify and develop its future leaders and this paper sets out many of the principles it will use to do so, including aligning talent management to a clear business strategy and valuing leaders "who can achieve results through others".
One of the case studies in the paper is South Downs Health NHS Trust, which provides community services in Brighton and Hove and which is about to integrate with the West Sussex Trust.
"Leadership will be key to the integration process," comments Andy Painton, chief executive at South Downs. "But the wider agenda is to increase quality and reduce costs. Leadership development is in some ways a proxy for the organisation we need to be. We need to create a culture where those leadership qualities are part of the way we behave every day. In tough economic times, you have to invest in developing talent, because it is your leaders who will create the environment in which people will innovate."
First talent management programme
The trust began its first talent management programme last November, after a number of changes in the organisation had highlighted the need for more effective leadership development. Fourteen leaders from across the trust were selected for the first bespoke development programme (see below).
With the appointment of Painton as chief executive, almost six months ago, the programme has now been widened and 80 staff will be selected for leadership training, with the first of the next session of training beginning in December.
Sarah Thomas, organisational learning manager at the trust, says the programme is already producing direct results in improved patient care. "We have one member of staff who now encourages staff to talk to patients about their experience and what would have made it better," she says. "It may not sound radical, but it is."
Case Study
Sylvia Russell
lead nurse manager
South Down Health NHS Trust
"I've been in the NHS for 28 years and I've seen a lot of changes. I was on the leading champions course and found it provided really practical tools. At a personal level, it's about building up mental toughness and resilience for making tough decisions and having tough conversations.
"The course was intensive. It was one day a month for six months of taught sessions, as well as meeting as a peer group to apply the learning, individual coaching, which I found really useful and 360 degree feedback, which was a bit scary. I also did a project, which was on reducing assessment and making it easier for patients to know who was doing what.
"The only downside has been sustaining that level of motivation, now the course has finished and the coaching has stopped."
From Bubb's Blog
From Whitehall Watch
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