The 2025 Leaders Programme was launched by the Leadership Centre in early 2016, with the ambition to equip participants with the leadership capabilities to meet the challenges that will the health and care systems will face in the future.
The idea of the programme was to equip individuals working in the Department of Health or an Arms Length body, who saw their next position as a Director General or Chief Executive (by 2020), with the skills needed tackle some of the most complex issues they might face. This group would be responsible for the creation and implementation of the roadmap to 2025 in the context of an increasingly complex set of demands and dynamics.
To solve the ‘wicked problems’ faced by the sector, leaders were increasingly being asked to work at the system rather than the organisational level, tackling situations and issues that are irreducibly complex rather than just technically complicated. The programme was therefore designed to create learning in four domains, helping leaders develop the specific capabilities associated with systems leadership:
• Personal development
• Relational capability
• Socio-political understanding
• Systemic thinking.
The first cohort of the 2025 Leaders Programme was made up of 19 individuals representing 10 organisations. They first met for a 24 hr design event in early 2016, giving them the chance to get to know each other as well as co-crafting the programme to match their individual, organisational and wider system goals and priorities.
This was followed by a three day event in June, looking at some of the major challenges faced by the Department and its Arms length bodies, including the politics of healthcare, how to lead systems change across Whitehall and locally, as well as how to enter effective partnerships across the NHS.
Along with a range of high profile organisational speakers, the participants also heard from teams who’ve been involved in the work of the Health and Social Care Integration Pioneers, Local Vision pilots and New Care Model Vanguard sites from Southend, Brent, Adur & Worthing and Coventry.
Following another 24 hour residential event in autumn 2016, participants travelled to Denmark and Sweden to observe a different health system, which included learning more about the pioneering work they undertake including:
• A visit to a ‘Living Lab’ Test apartment – where developers and citizens can test out new technological solutions to help the elderly citizens in Copenhagen to live more independently. If the solutions are deemed fit for purpose they can then be rolled out on a wider scale.
• Exploring the design principles for the largest Emergency Department in Denmark, where all emergency units are gathered in one specially designed building, made to offer the patients an integrated approach, where different specialties are working closely together and using the newest technology.
The programmes successful in supporting participants to access perspectives on a range of issues and create increased collaborative working across the participating organisations. You can find out more about the 2025 Leaders Programme by taking a look at the programme flyer below.