Happier Hospitals Means Healthier Patients

The Centre for Innovation in Health Management a department of the Leeds University has released its finding in to The National Inquiry into Management and Medicine. Looking at hospitals across the UK, the inquiry focussed on the relationships between doctors and NHS managers. Perhaps not surprisingly it found that where Managers and Doctors had effective working relationships, the health service runs more efficiently and patient outcomes are better.
The research, led by Professor Ian Kirkpatrick, blames poor relationships between the two sides for the fact that increased productivity in hospitals has not kept pace with the rise in spending.

The National Inquiry into Management and Medicine, Key findings;

“The NHS is obsessed with money not with clinical care. This report shows that NHS organisations need to focus first and foremost on patients and their treatment and care and that should be modelled at the top of the NHS. General Management cannot ‘manage’ without knowing the business it is in.”

It recommends that;
> The NHS should set the direction and expectations for the service, but allow individual trusts to develop their own metrics, (ie measures or targets)
> Chief Executives should stop moving from trust to trust – and where they do move, should ensure a succession plan is in place to conserve productive relationships rather than destroy them.
> Commissioners and providers should be locally accountable.
> Clinicians and management should be involved in the development of performance data.
> Both sides should talk to staff, listen to their experiences of working together, and assess whether their real-life stories suggest the working relationship is productive – or obstructive.
> Medical students should be taught about management earlier in their education, with the curriculum embedding the notion that management is core business for doctors.