Women in the boardroom and their impact on governance and performance

In October, Healthcare Governance Review reported that Harriet Harman, minister for Women and Equality, has told the Treasury Select Committee that the Britain’s boardrooms must have more women on them (click here).

Speaking on Tuesday 20 October in relation to how boards of City firms could improve Britain’s economic performance through boardroom diversity, she told the Committee “If you want to make sure you don’t have the nightmare of men-only boards, you actually have to change the terms on which men and women participate, you have to change the culture and working practices because the greater good you are aiming for is to make sure you have diverse boards and a proper meritocratic approach.”

Healthcare Governance Review has come across an interesting academic paper Women in the boardroom and their impact on governance and performance by Renee Adams (Australia) and Daniel Ferreria (London).

Adams and Ferreira, in a study of US corporate firms, state that “Many proposals for governance reform explicitly stress the importance of gender diversity in the boardroom. In the UK, the Higgs (2003) report, commissioned by the British Department of Trade and Industry, argues that diversity could enhance board effectiveness and specifically recommends that firms draw more actively from professional groups in which women are better represented. If companies do not voluntarily reserve a minimum of 25% of their board seats for female directors, Sweden has threatened to make gender diversity a legal requirement ………The most extreme promotion of gender diversity occurs in Norway, where since January 2008 all listed companies must abide by a 40% gender quota for female directors or face dissolution.”

In their paper, Adams and Ferreira say they provide new evidence that is relevant to the ‘women on boards’ debate by investigating the hypothesis that gender diversity in the boardroom affects governance in meaningful ways. In particular, they ask the following questions. First, do measures of board inputs (director attendance and committee assignments) vary with gender diversity? Second, does the gender composition of the board affect measures of governance, such as chief executive officer (CEO) turnover and compensation? Finally, does the effect of gender diversity on governance matter sufficiently to affect corporate performance?

The researchers found that gender diversity in boards has significant effects on board inputs. Women are less likely to have attendance problems than men. Furthermore, the greater the fraction of women on the board is, the better is the attendance behaviour of male directors. Holding other director characteristics constant, female directors are also more likely to sit on monitoring-related committees than male directors. In particular, women are more likely to be assigned to audit, nominating, and corporate governance committees, although they are less likely to sit on compensation committees than men are.

Women also appear to have a significant impact on board governance. The researchers found direct evidence that more diverse boards are more likely to hold CEOs accountable for poor performance.

The evidence on the relation between gender diversity on boards and firm performance was more difficult to interpret. The researchers found that firms perform worse the greater is the gender diversity of the board. This result is consistent, they say, with the argument that too much board monitoring can decrease shareholder value. Thus, they conclude, it is possible that gender diversity only increases value when additional board monitoring would enhance firm value.

If the key findings of Adam’s and Ferreira’s research can be extrapolated to the case of NHS boards, who tend to ‘fail’ because of a lack of sound monitoring of management, we might reasonably conclude that more diverse boards would be more likely to hold the CEO accountable for poor performance and, in general, would enhance board monitoring of management.

The full academic paper Women in the boardroom and their impact on governance and performance by Renee Adams and Daniel Ferreira can be downloaded here.

Legal action warning issued to NHS bodies not complying with the Race Relations Act

The Equality and Human Rights Commission has issued compliance notices to three NHS organisations warning that they need to take steps immediately to address race equality or face legal action for failing to comply with the Race Relations Act.

The Commission believes Frimley Park Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust, and NHS Surrey are in breach of the Act’s Race Equality Duty. This Duty requires certain public authorities to eliminate racial discrimination, and promote equal opportunities and good race relations.

The Trusts have failed to put in place compliant Race Equality Schemes that set out how they will meet the Duty including:

• an assessment of functions and policies relevant to race equality
• the arrangements for monitoring policies for any adverse impact on the promotion of race equality
• assessing and consulting on the likely impact of proposed policies on the promotion of race equality
• training staff on how to adhere to the Duty

In addition, NHS Surrey and Kent and Medway NHS must take particular steps to improve their employment monitoring in accordance with their obligations under the Race Relations Act. Obligations required of listed public authorities include putting in place arrangements to monitor the ethnic background of staff and applicants for jobs, promotions and training, as well as monitoring the number of staff from each racial group who are involved in grievance procedures, subject to disciplinary procedures or cease employment with them.

Each Trust has also failed to carry out equality impact assessments on policies. The Commission has asked the Trusts to address these deficiencies.

The three NHS Trusts have received a compliance notice which is the first step in formal legal action. They have three months to put the scheme and monitoring plans in place. Failure to deliver may result in an application to the County Court.

The Commission is writing to a number of other Trusts about concerns it has with their failure to comply with race laws. The Commission is also in discussion with the Strategic Health Authority about how they can play a leading role in improving the standards of compliance by Trusts within their area.

For further information on this post, click here.

Governance of PCT provider services – discussion paper

Dynamic Change and The Good Governance Institute have published a paper that outlines current issues and provides governance guidance to PCTs and their provider services.  According to Dynamic Change “…in writing this paper it became clear that governance arrangements were often being developed in a hurry and without thinking through the ramifications for the future. Worse still, in many PCTs governance arrangements were being arrived at without a clear vision of what was to be governed.”

The purpose of the paper, according to Dynamic Change, is to encourage PCTs to pause before committing themselves further, and to be thoughtful about what it is they are doing. PCT leaders should think through what the aims of their provider de-merger is, the holistic nature of modern thinking on governance and only then start to put in place governance arrangements that are appropriate.

Readers will probably be familiar with the authors of this paper, Andrew Corbett-Nolan and Dr. John Bullivant of The Good Governance Institute.

To order your free electronic copy of the first draft of this discussion paper email liz.jones@dynamicchange.com

Dr Foster publishes 2009 Hospital Guide

Dr Foster has published its 2009 Hospital Guide, in which it has scored trusts on an overall patient safety measure and banded those with similar scores between 1 for the poorest performers and 5 for the best.

The Guide shows that overall, ‘Hospital Standardised Mortality Ratios’ (HSMRs) decreased nationally by 7 per cent last year and 32 trusts have low HSMRs. Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation trust , which was criticised last year by the Healthcare Commission for failings in quality of care, has reduced its death rates by 34% compared to three years ago.

However, less positively the Guide found that 27 trusts still have significantly high HSMRs; seven trusts are not compliant with National Patient Safety Agency alerts; and 5024 people admitted with low risk conditions died in hospital last year (848 under the age of 65). Although it is inevitable that some patients with these conditions will die during or after treatment, comparing rates between hospitals and investigating those deaths that do occur are, says Dr Foster, useful ways of identifying failings in patient safety.

The Guide also reveals that last year at least 209 foreign objects were left behind in patients after operations, with 9 trusts recording six or more incidents, and 82 incidents of ‘wrong-site’ surgery took place (operating on the wrong body part). Whilst these incidents should never occur, the figures are, says Dr Foster, evidence that the NHS is developing a commendable culture of openness and reporting.

Roger Taylor, Director and co-founder of Dr Foster said: "Over the last nine years of the Hospital Guide we have seen a steady improvement in hospital performance but unacceptable variation between hospitals still exists. Dr Foster will continue to publish data in order to provide information to the public, drive improvement in patient care and save lives.

"Hospital trusts should use the Guide to carefully investigate where problems exist, even those who have performed well. Patients and the public should use the Hospital Guide to help make choices about where they want to be treated, to ask the right questions of their health professionals and to hold hospitals to account."

Through the website www.drfosterhealth.co.uk Dr Foster say thay will also provide an example ‘Quality Account’ that they hope will stimulate discussion as to how quality accounts should be used across the NHS.

Download the Dr Foster 2009 Hospital Guide here.

Linked article – Boards that don’t receive patient safety information are “irresponsible”

Monitor removes Chair of Colchester Hospital University NHS foundation trust

Monitor, the independent regulator of NHS foundation trusts, has used its regulatory powers to remove Mr Richard Bourne as Chair of the Trust with immediate effect and appoint Sir Peter Dixon as interim Chair of Colchester Hospital University NHS Foundation Trust with effect from Monday 30 November 2009.

The decision to intervene was taken by Monitor’s Board at its monthly meeting at which the Board found the Trust in significant breach of its Authorisation.

Regulatory action has been prompted by the Trust’s failure to comply with healthcare standards; its failure to exercise its functions effectively, efficiently and economically; and serious and wide ranging concerns as to overall governance and leadership at the Trust.

Having given full consideration to these issues, and the various options for regulatory action, Monitor decided a change in Board leadership was most likely to assist in a rapid and sustained return to compliance with the terms of its Authorisation. Monitor’s Board has therefore taken action to ensure that the Trust has the Board-level leadership capacity to secure on an ongoing basis safe, high quality care for its patients.

Commenting on the intervention, Monitor’s Executive Chairman, William Moyes said:

“We have taken this decision to ensure the Trust has the Board leadership capacity to address our concerns. Ultimately this is about making sure the Trust is in a position to identify risks and challenges that affect patient services and then deliver an effective response.

“Sir Peter Dixon is a highly experienced Chair of a successful foundation trust that has successfully addressed challenges of its own. I am confident his leadership will benefit Colchester Hospital University by providing strategic board-level leadership.”

Sir Peter Dixon’s term as interim Chair will conclude when the Trust has demonstrated that it can return to compliance with its Authorisation and at that time we will expect the Trust’s governors to commence a permanent appointment to the role.

Read Monitor’s full statement on this matter here.

Merry Xmas from Healthcare Governance Review!

Managing healthcare risk: Out with AS/NZS 4360 – In with ISO 31000

Few people concerned with managing ANY kind of risk in the NHS will not have heard of AS/NZS 4360 – the Australian/New Zealand risk management Standard. The Standard was licensed for the NHS in England in 1999 as part of the Department of Health’s NHS Controls Assurance Project. It introduced to the NHS the concept and practice of risk registers and risk matrices. AS/NZS was subsequently licensed by the rest of the UK NHS and also by the public healthcare system in Ireland.

AS/NZS 4360 is about to be consigned to risk management history. In December 2009 it will be replaced by ISO 31000 – a truly international risk management standard that, essentially, is the next revision of AS/NZS 4360.

Watch a presentation given by Kevin Knight, chair of the ISO working group on the ISO risk management standard, and the driving force behind AS/NZS 4360, on the new Standard and its links with AS/NZS 4360. 

Watch Kevin’s presentation here.

Monitor publishes new guidance for NHS foundation trust governors

Monitor, regulator of NHS foundation trusts, surveyed foundation trust governors in 2007 to find out how well they were performing in their new role; the findings of that study indicated governors would welcome further advice and support on discharging their statutory duties.

Governors are an essential part of the unique governance structure at NHS foundation trusts; as the elected and appointed representatives of staff, patients, and local stakeholders, they provide a tangible link between a foundation trust and the local community it serves. The board of governors has significant power at its disposal through the statutory duties that it is required to discharge. In the process of representing the interests of the trust’s members, governors have a statutory duty to:

• appoint and, if appropriate, remove the chair;
• appoint and, if appropriate, remove the other non-executive directors;
• decide the remuneration and allowances, and the other terms and conditions of office, of the chair and the other non-executive directors;
• approve the appointment of the chief executive;
• appoint and, if appropriate, remove the NHS foundation trust’s auditor; and
• receive the NHS foundation trust’s annual accounts, any report of the auditor on them and the annual report.

In addition:

• in preparing the NHS foundation trust’s forward plan, the board of directors must have regard to the views of the board of governors.

The new guidance addresses each of these statutory duties, describing the processes involved and suggesting points for consideration.

Download the new guidance Your Statutory Duties: A Reference Guide for NHS Foundation Trust Governors here.

Charity Commission disputes Department of Health ruling on NHS charities’ accounts

According to an article in ThirdSector (27 October 2009), The Charity Commission appears to be heading for a showdown with the Department of Health (DH) over accounting procedures for NHS charities in England and Wales.

Senior Department of Health official Janet Perry has told health authorities that any NHS body that is the sole trustee of a charity must move that charity’s assets onto its own balance sheet.

Her position relies on a recently introduced international public accounting standard that says public sector bodies must consolidate the accounts of any organisations they control that have an income above a certain level. The DH estimates this to be about 30 of the 282 NHS charities that have NHS bodies as sole corporate trustees.

But the Commission is planning to write to the health authorities telling them they must not consolidate NHS charities’ accounts. Its official guidance says it is “wholly inappropriate” that charitable funds should ever appear on the balance sheets of public sector organisations, because it gives the impression that charitable assets are controlled by government.

Nick Brooks, head of not-for-profit at accountancy firm Kingston Smith, called the DH position “accounting dogma gone barking mad”. He said: “Consolidation should occur only if there is ownership. If you would not own the funds if the other organisation was wound up, you should not consolidate those funds into your own accounts.”

Jonathan Brinsden, a partner at specialist charity law company Bircham Dyson Bell, said he believed the commission was right to take a stand against the DH, but that corporate trustees would now be left in an invidious position.

“If I was in this situation, it would be impossible to know which authority to listen to,” he said. “Nor do I know how this conflict can be managed.”

A spokeswoman for the Commission said: “We don’t agree with the interpretation in the Department of Health’s letter. We will be following up with the Department of Health on this issue accordingly, and will also be writing to strategic health authority directors of finance to make our position clear.”

Source: ThirdSector – click here.

NHS governance related courses from ICSA

The Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators (ICSA) is running three governance related one day courses for NHS participants during November 2009. Detailed are as follows. ICSA says if all three courses are booked you save 20% on total price – a saving of £237.

The NHS Trust Secretary

Price: £395 Date and location: 10 November, London CPD: 6 hours

Click here to view a detailed programme

Understanding Finance in an NHS Trust

Price: £395 Date and location: 17 November, London CPD: 6 hours

Click here to view a detailed programme

Effective Governance in an NHS Trust

Price: £395 Date and location: 24 November, London CPD: 6 hours

Click here to view a detailed programme

Note: This post is provided for information only. Unless specifically indicated to the contrary, Healthcare Governance Review does not endorse advertised training events.

One in 50 episodes of NHS care result from ‘complications’

According to provisional figures released by the NHS Information Centre this month, one in 50 episodes of care commissioned by the NHS, in NHS hospitals or the independent sector, in England resulted from a complication between July 2008 and June 2009.

This equates to 326,000 (two percent) of the 16.3 million episodes during this period, a slight rise compared to the previous 12 month period when 295,000 (1.9 percent; or one in 53) of the 15.6 million episodes resulted from a complication.

A hospital episode relates to a patient’s period of care under one consultant during their hospital stay.

Complications relate to four areas of medical and surgical care in hospital. Between July 2008 and June 2009:

• 95,930 complications (29 per cent of all complications) involved an adverse affect on a patient from drugs used in their treatment.
• 5,050 complications (two per cent of all complications) involved misadventures to the patient during surgical and medical care.
• 3,690 complications (one per cent of all complications) involved an adverse incident relating to medical devices used for diagnosis or therapy.
• 221,150 complications (68 per cent of all complications) involved an abnormal reaction by a patient some time after a surgical or medical procedure, where misadventure was not mentioned at the time of the procedure.

NHS Information Centre chief executive Tim Straughan said: “This is the first time The NHS Information Centre has published a special topic about complications during a patient’s hospital stay. Provisionally it appears one in 50 hospital episodes involve a complication and two thirds of those arise at some point following a surgical or medical procedure.

“It is important to note that complications can occur as a result of patient’s physical reaction to treatment that was not able to be predicted, rather than arising due to any fault of the medical professionals involved. Trends may also include effects of any changes in data recording and clinical coding practices. This information will be useful however to help the NHS examine possible reasons for complications and improve the quality of patient care.”

For further information, click here.

Notable quote: Governance in healthcare

“Governance lives at board level, but its effects should be felt from board to ward.”

Linda Abolins, Lesley Adcock, Juliet Hardcastle, Andrew Jackson, Keith Peskett. Postgraduate programme in healthcare governance, Loughborough University, October 2009.

Getting (more) women on boards

Harriet Harman, minister for Women and Equality, has told the Treasury Select Committee that the Britain’s boardrooms must have more women on them.

Speaking on Tuesday 20 October in relation to how boards of City firms could improve Britain’s economic performance through boardroom diversity, she told the Committee “If you want to make sure you don’t have the nightmare of men-only boards, you actually have to change the terms on which men and women participate, you have to change the culture and working practices because the greater good you are aiming for is to make sure you have diverse boards and a proper meritocratic approach.”

Interestingly, the Department of Health published, on 13 October, the report of the Chair of the National Working Group on Women in Medicine. Titled Women doctors: making a difference, the report aims, amongst other things, to encourage women in leadership.

In particular, the report recommends that “There should be increased access for women to the committees and boards of major medical institutions, including the medical schools, postgraduate deaneries, medical Royal Colleges, NHS trusts and other NHS bodies. The Equality and Human Rights Commission should consider auditing the appointments process for all such posts at these institutions, as they consider appropriate, to assess whether sufficient opportunity has been created to increase access for women to these respective organisations’ committees and boards.”

Download Women doctors: making a difference here.

Readers with an interest in women on NHS boards might be interested in the following Health Service Journal (HSJ) articles:

Anne Watts on women in the non-executive workplace (16 May 2008)
Few women doctors have board-level responsibilities, says RCP (4 June 2009)

Governing the NHS 2010 and beyond – consultants appointed to write the new guidance

Readers may recall that the 2003 Department of Health guidance Governing the NHS: Guidance for boards is being ‘refreshed’ (see the following post).

According to Elisabeth Buggins, Chair of NHS West Midlands and the Board Development lead for the National Leadership Council “The National Leadership Council has recognised the critical role boards play in addressing the challenges of the modern NHS and I want to make sure that the whole board will benefit from up to-date guidance on governance issues.”

Working with the Appointments Commission and other partners including Monitor, the NHS Confederation and the NHS Institute, Elisabeth has established a vision that the new guidance will be ‘compelling not compulsory’.

Foresight Partnership in association with the King’s Patient Safety and Service Quality Research Centre have been appointed to develop the new guidance. According to Adrienne Fresko of Foresight Partnership “We will be looking at the extensive literature on governance to underpin the guidance but we are also keen to make sure that we are responding to the issues that Boards sometimes find difficult.”

Adrienne and her colleagues are working to a tight deadline as the new guidance will be launched at the Chairs Conference organised by the Appointments Commission on 23 February in Central London.

According to Elizabeth Buggins “We hope that the final document will assist boards in reaching the highest standards of governance, which we know is so important in achieving world class commissioning and excellent service delivery.”

Healthcare Governance Review endorses Elizabeth’s hopes and looks forward to reviewing the new guidance when it is published early in 2010.

Further information can be found in the autumn 2009 edition of Bulletin – News from the Appointments Commission, downloadable here.

Governance of health and safety – the need to ensure safe systems of operation and to carry out risk assessments

David Halcki MBE (David.Halicki@btinternet.com), independent health and safety consultant and former NHS safety professional, believes that NHS boards and managers should learn lessons from the following industrial laundry incident. In particular, he is urging boards to ensure that NHS organisations have safe systems of operation in place and carry out risk assessments both in relation to any laundry services they might have, and in relation to wider organisational health and safety matters.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is urging laundry companies to ensure that they have safe systems of operation in place and carry out risk assessments after a worker was left in a coma, following an incident at a factory in Balham, Wandsworth. This follows the successful prosecution (Thursday 24 September) of a major UK laundry company at Southwark Crown Court, following an incident in October 2007. OCS Group UK Limited of Limpsfield Road, Sanderstead in Surrey was fined £80,000 and ordered to pay costs of £33,059, after pleading guilty to breaching section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974, after Joseph Pathmananthan, a worker at the site, was injured in a serious incident.

OCS Group UK Limited provides commercial laundry services at industrial processing plants across the UK, including Balham. This plant had approximately 150 workers. 

On 2 October 2007, Mr Pathmananthan, a 61 year-old employee from Sutton in London, was working at the company’s Boundaries Road site in Balham. He was repairing the hopper unit which loads roller towels into the top of a continuous batch washer, which is an industrial washing machine costing more than one million pounds. The hopper unit needed repairing after a towel had become entangled in a lifting belt. After several different methods had been used by Mr Pathmananthan and four other colleagues to dislodge the towel, he entered the hoist’s protective cage to continue to try to remove the towel. Mr Pathmananthan was standing underneath the suspended large steel hopper. As the towel became free the hopper fell two meters onto the victim, crushing him. He suffered from multiple broken bones and internal injures and was in a coma for 19 days.  He stayed in hospital for three months and has not been able to return to work for two years since the incident.

OCS Group UK Ltd carried out an internal investigation into the incident and almost all the blame fell on a number of employees on the Balham site, including the victim who was disciplined. Despite the HSE subsequently prosecuting OCS, the company’s own internal investigation made little criticism of the company’s policies or of senior management. The HSE investigation showed that OCS Group UK Ltd did not have a sufficiently effective system for ensuring the machinery was safe to be operated and maintained, and that there were no checks on the machinery after its repair.  Also, the Balham site engineering team had not been provided with a manual which would have clearly shown how to raise the hopper safely for someone to work beneath it.  The court heard that two years prior to the incident, an HSE Inspector had attended the site and had identified that Mr Pathmananthan needed more support.

The HSE gave direction on necessary improvements including the need to risk assess the continuous batch washer, but there was no evidence this had been followed by OCS Group UK.  The HSE also found the site had inadequate controls in place to stop people slipping and tripping and that the movement of vehicles at the busy site was disorganised and dangerous.

While sentencing the company, Judge Taylor criticised OCS Group UK Ltd for what she said was a systemic failure and its complacency during monitoring. If the company had not pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity Judge Taylor, said the fine would have been £40,000 more. Andrew Verrall-Withers, Health and Safety Inspector, said: “I was pleased the company co-operated with the investigation and made good efforts to improve after the incident, but I was surprised and disappointed that their own internal investigation failed to identify so much of what the company had got wrong.  “I hope this case sends out a message to other companies, including large ones, that it is vital they make sure that they are protecting their employees effectively. It is no good to anyone if problems are only found after it is too late.”

Healthcare Inspectorate Wales publishes 2008-09 Healthcare Standards Reports

In May 2005 the Welsh Assembly Government published Healthcare Standards for Wales, setting out a common framework to support the NHS and partner organisations in providing effective, timely and quality services across all healthcare settings. The standards are focused on improving the experience of patients and service users and placing them at the centre of the way in which services are planned and delivered, thus providing a basis for continuous improvement. The 32 standards include 15 concerned with ‘healthcare governance.’

This is the third year in which each of the Welsh Local Health Boards and NHS trusts, together with Health Commission Wales has been required to self assess its progress in delivering the highest level of performance against each of the 32 standards and to submit its assessments to Healthcare Inspectorate Wales (HIW) for testing and validation.

All of the Healthcare Standards reports for 2008/09, together with archived reports for the past two years, can be downloaded here.

South Tees FT needs Deputy Director of Healthcare Governance and Quality: Closing date 23 Oct 2009

Following a major Trust-wide review of their Governance structures, South Tees are looking for someone to provide the strategic leadership and corporate management of Clinical Governance within the Healthcare Governance Directorate. This will involve working closely with the Medical Director and Director of Nursing and Patient Safety. It will also involve working with the Head of Corporate Affairs and the Head of Financial Governance and Control to ensure that the Trust achieves integrated governance. The successful candidate will deputise for the Executive Directors on Governance issues and be part of the Trust’s senior management team. He/she will lead a team covering a comprehensive range of associated functions: NICE and NPSA guidance, Clinical Audit, NHSLA and CQC compliance.

Educated to Masters Degree level the successful candidate will need to have significant experience of working in a senior management position in a complex organisation. He/she will possess a comprehensive understanding of clinical governance and the requirements of the External Regulators and will need to be a dynamic and transformational leader with experience of developing corporate policy, strategy and preparing and presenting Board papers.

Successful candidates will be required to attend the selection process on Monday 16 November 2009.

The post is advertised as 37.5 Hours Per Week and Agenda for Change terms and conditions Band 8D with Salary Range: £63,833 – £79,031 pa plus Pension and Staff Benefits

For informal enquiries, or to arrange a visit, please contact Sue Wooding on (01642) 854697 or email Sue.wooding@stees.nhs.uk

Closing Date: 23 October 2009

Developing an effective, forward-looking NHS board to drive the organisation to success

One of the presentations at the Health Service Journal’s (HSJ) Leadership Forum 2009 (30 November in Central London) is titled Board level leadership: Developing an effective, forward-looking board to drive the organisation to success

Led by Elisabeth Buggins, Chair NHS West Midlands, and Mike Cooke, Chief Executive, Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust, the presentation will aim to:

1. level leaders to look out at the commercial landscape, and not up;

2. examine the role of executive coaching, and understand where it adds value; and

3. Empowering board members to understand what information they require to respond to the needs of their trust and the community

For further information on the HSJ Leadership Forum 2009, click here.

 

Mid Staffs – “It is the job of boards and board members to make choices and balance priorities”

The Health Service Journal (HSJ – 8 October 2009) has reported on the publication by Mid Staffordshire Foundation Trust of a report into the conduct and performance of its previous chief executive Martin Yeates. Mr Yates resigned in May this year after the Mid Staffs board received the report.

According to the HSJ, the report says leadership and management of the trust had improved after Mr Yeates arrived, but confirms the massive failures reported by the Healthcare Commission.

It says: “….we have not seen or heard evidence to subvert the [Healthcare Commission’s] findings that there were significant failures in the leadership and management of the trust over the period of care, and these contributed to poor clinical care.”

The report further states that “Safety and quality of care are clearly of paramount importance in any NHS trust and would therefore need to be given priority in any consideration of the conduct and performance of a chief executive. They are not, however, the only measure of performance and the trust appears to have performed well against some other targets and priorities in recent years and we make reference to some of these later in the report. But performance in one area cannot be at the expense of performance in another, especially where patient care is concerned. It is the job of boards and board members to make choices and balance priorities.”

Readers can download the report on the HSJ’s website here.

Audit Commission ‘High Performing Board’ events for existing and aspirant foundation trusts

Following the success of their high performing board seminars in 2007 and 2008, the Audit Commission is holding a series of seminars between 22 October and 26 November dedicated to foundation trusts and aspiring foundation trusts across England.

Continuing the theme of the high performing board while focusing upon quality, the seminar will support executive and non-executive directors to enhance their understanding of the right level of information required to discharge their duties.

The seminar will focus on three themes:

Quality Improvement

This presentation will enable you to learn from others by sharing the experience of delivering quality improvements in patient care and re-shaping local health services to respond to the needs of the local community.

Quality and Costs

This presentation will explore how boards ensure that they can safely reduce costs and advance quality at the same time. It will also explore successful NHS productivity and efficiency schemes.

Quality NHS leadership

This presentation will discuss and explore the benefits of creating and embedding a quality leadership culture. The seminar will allow for presentations, time for discussion and reflection. It will enable you to meet and network with colleagues working in diverse roles across the health economy.

For further information, including dates, venues, speakers and booking form, click here.