The medical director role is one of the most varied in NHS management and reflects the breadth of organisational structures across the health sector. It is also of great significance for the NHS as it looks towards its next generation of leaders.
This report combines the results of a joint HSJ Hunter Healthcare survey of medical directors, including more than 50 conversations with medical directors working across acute, community and mental health organisations of varying size throughout the UK.
Our focus was to begin to understand the common elements that make a top medical director, to gain insight into the everyday pressures these individuals face and ask how we might support the next generation of medical leaders. We found the role is often shaped by the demands of the organisation. A medical director is much more than just a clinically informed voice on the board, whose role is to bring the front line of healthcare service into the boardroom. They provide key pointers for the strategic direction of the trust, particularly with regard to clinical practice, while communicating the strategic vision to frontline staff.
The best medical directors combine several qualities – personal resilience, integrity, honesty, openness and the ability to communicate effectively with a wide range of people from staff to patients and the public. They use these qualities to ensure that staff are engaged in the organisation’s vision and are able to create a culture of improvement.
However, given the importance of the role, there are impediments to the development of the next generation of medical directors. The majority of the medical directors we spoke to had set out on their careers with the aim of developing their clinical expertise. They become consultants within a given specialty, and often find themselves on the path towards becoming a medical director without having deliberately taken it. The route to being appointed on the board is not always actively pursued, with many of those interviewed commenting that opportunities simply arose or even that they fell into a particular role having being asked to help out.
Our survey found that 42 per cent of medical directors are in the job for between five and 10 years; 46 per cent last between two and five years. Although these figures could be seen as encouraging, more can be done to ensure the next generation of medical directors is primed to step into the role and prepared to stay there.
Read more here: What Makes A Top Medical Director Report – Hunter Healthcare
