New drive to help nurses move into NHS management

More nurses and doctors will be encouraged to run hospitals, health secretary Jeremy Hunt has announced.

New training courses and potential changes to Nursing and Midwifery Council rules are among the options to support nurses into the most senior NHS roles.

Currently, only 54% of managers and one third of chief executive officers in the NHS are clinicians. 

Women and people from black and minority ethnic (BME) backgrounds are particularly underrepresented, Mr Hunt said.

Mr Hunt told the NHS Providers annual conference in Birmingham on Wednesday it is ‘time for urgent action to broaden and deepen the pool of people willing and able to step into NHS management roles’.

He continued: ‘I would like to see a greater proportion of clinician chief executives in the next decade, allowing space for an outstanding new generation of leaders from clinical and non-clinical backgrounds, and exploiting the huge talents of our female and BME workforce at the same time.’

Transition

Mr Hunt has commissioned work on whether the NMC rules should be adapted to encourage transitions to management roles. The Faculty of Medical Leadership and Management will also consider how to make it easier for nurses to move from management back into clinical practice as part of the project to be completed by the end of March. 

Each year, 30 clinicians will be sent to a leading university to study a fast-track development programme. This year’s cohort has gone to Yale University in the US.

The government will work with universities to develop an NHS master of business administration that clinicians can study while working, Mr Hunt added.

He also criticised the use of temporary staff in too many senior posts. ‘It’s hardly surprising that we under-exploit the talent so dramatically that one in 10 of our chief executive posts is filled by interims or is on a fixed-term contract basis,’ he said.