Briefing / System leadership in the NHS

This paper is based on a discussion between senior NHS finance directors at the HFMA’s July 2014 Policy Forum meeting. It considers the role of system leadership, the aspects that are missing or not working well in the current system and what practical steps finance directors can take locally. We describe the main points of the discussion and use our previous work to draw attention to an area that has been raised as a concern by a significant proportion of NHS finance directors.

System leadership is difficult to define, but is about people and organisations in an area using their influence to get consensus about the way forward and supporting change. The HFMA wants to generate ideas about how the concerns raised about the lack of system leadership can be addressed and we set out our view on what might need to change.