Leadership for Equality - The National Leadership Council. Clinical Leadership - The National Leadership Council. Leadership for Commissioning - The National Leadership Council. Top Leaders - The National Leadership Council. NHS Leadership and the National Leadership Council - Home - The National Leadership Council. Clinical_leadership_AHP_Nov07. Clinical Leadership. Clinical leadership refers to '…both a set of tasks to lead improvements in the safety and quality of health care, and the attributes required to successfully carry them out' (Victorian Quality Council, 2005). As an Allied Health Professional working in a remote or rural area your role is likely to include a clinical leadership element.
Clinicians can lead in many ways, both formal and informal, as part of their organisational position and/or through their collegiate relationships. There are many ways in which you can act as a clinical leader including: Developing Personal Qualities: Qualities such as self-awareness, self-reflection, self-management, professionalism, and self-development. Working with Others: Developing networks, building and maintaining relationships, team building, developing others, engaging with clients and consumers, and collaborating with other service providers. Adapted from the Medial Leadership Competency Framework (NHS, 2008). Clinical Leadership Competency Framework Project. Eleven Worthy Aims for Clinical Leadership of Health System Reform, September 14, 1994, Berwick 272 (10): 797. Clinicians ought to be playing a central role in making the changes in the health care system that will allow the system to offer better outcomes, greater ease of use, lower cost, and more social justice in health status.
Instead, most of the proposed changes that are today called "health care reform" are actually changes in the surroundings of care rather than changes in the care itself. Clinicians have an opportunity to exercise leadership for the improvement of care, but they must first agree to address the aims of reform and to adopt an agenda of specific changes in their own work that are likely to meet the social needs driving the reform movement.
Health services research offers a sound scientific basis for identifying promising improvement aims for clinician-led reform.